Recent reviews by Why Watt

My first playthrough of Elden Ring was a blind run and, typically, I dislike searching things up when playing a game and want to explore and fully enjoy the experience.

Thus, while the game is certainly worth the buy - the amount of replayability off the sheer amount of spells, incantations, weapons and builds along with all the niche items - all makes it worth buying full price, I won't say the game is without flaws.

Namely, my first playthrough, I never fully completed because at the time of the game's release, I was experiencing a frustrating crash when I reached the capital city, one I'd also occasionally experienced when fighting the Tree Sentinel.

That first run, I made it to the altus plateau after navigating my way through some caves and fighting a Magma Wyrm who probably has my favorite design of any enemy barring some of the end game dragons and Elden Beast itself.

However the contrast between that run of wonder and frustration, and a run using the seamless co-op mod w/ a friend of mine who'd gotten every achievement, was simply staggering and is why I should note flaws to the game I didn't even know existed. Namely, how experiencing even half of what Elden Ring has to offer on a blind run is simply not doable.

You can get all the way to beating the funny old man a second time without searching up a single thing. You can go to the land of the giants and set the erdtree aflame without searching anything up. You can take the most basic ending too.

After that? Yeah idk what the devs were thinking.

Entire regions being locked off behind randomly sleeping in a coffin that takes you up or down waterfalls, or jumping off extremely specific cliff areas. Feels like half the remembrance bosses have the most absurd prerequisites to reach them, and that doesn't even account for the quests.

Ranni and Dung Eater's questlines are just bizarre. Without my friend leading me down the most obscure of areas, I'd have never completed their questlines, or started carrying around the flame of madness and literally burn the world down after beating elden beast. So much amazing stuff feels sort of cheated from you on a blind run, and in a game that at times feels daunting with how much there is to explore in any area of any dungeon, you can easily miss half the spells and amazing unique weapons in the game.

Larval tears are another example of a really weird thing to acquire. Just random enemies having them that you'd need to stumble upon in areas you already probably visited and mostly cleared out...

Idk.

The game is fun. The game is worth your money, objectively, especially when for the same price you could buy a disaster like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet lmao, your $60 is absolutely well spent on Elden Ring. The game has a very distinct aesthetic where enemies are generally ugly, intentionally, instead of most games designing the most aesthetic, awesome looking foes. Even dragons (except a select few) are quite repulsive to look at. The game is bold and will challenge you to actually use the game's mechanics or find innovative strategies to blow past learning to actually be good at fighting. I haven't done the PvP in elden ring much, but if it's anything like Dark Souls 3 then I'm sure its addictive as hell (a game i never finished because I got so focused on the PvP I could never bother to explore much further, always waiting for some invader to pop in and give me a wild ride)

Is it game of the year worthy? Of course it is. The game has actual soul and quality put into it. You can see the devs actually care beyond trying to asset flip a profit.

But it isn't perfect and I feel an honest review should make note of it.

I think what really sells Ark: Survival Evolved is how the devs embraced the fact you can't please everyone... by giving means for everyone to be pleased.

Server customisation is so incredibly jacked up that you can pretty much find any sort of experience, or set up such an experience for singleplayer or multiplayer, as you see fit. They spent a lot of money early on fostering a diverse and talented modding community with contests with cash prizes.

I never really got into the game's lore - the lore isn't what ever mattered to me... it's the sheer volume of content, both modded and unmodded. They didn't focus per-se on quality over quantity, but the quality of later tameable creatures certainly got higher over time.

Over the years a lot of QoL changes have been implemented that made the experience even more approachable.

Personally I enjoy harsh PvPvE experiences, where nobody's position in power is certain. I can have that, but that doesn't stop someone with creative juices from going for a PvE experience around building or breeding for specific mutations on creatures, nor are any of the above limiting for people who may want a sci fi adventure, a primitive roleplay experience, and so on.

I would say the game doesn't make PvP feel meaningful beyond griefing, and most of the time balance is so poor on the PvE side some easy to access tames trivialise the game, with nothing coming close to challenging you after a certain point. The game's progression makes things easier and easier as you go along which does it no favors... but I don't feel these shortcomings offset the other strengths the game has. The game's got more bang for buck than pretty much anything else on the market.

I'll just get right into it.

Do you like SCP?

Secure. Contain. Protect.

Imagine that, but half assed, without any of the real charm to it.

It feels like a sort of parody honestly. Yeah, some big secret organisation you tracked down because they covered up things that happened to you and your sibling. OK. You go in and then they make you their leader. Google Family Guy Peter Says the N Word.

Sure, they ground it with an interesting aesthetic, and unlike foundation bases there's something anomalous about the actual place itself, only allowing certain items inside, an internal justification for a unique aesthetic.

But the character just... doesn't even remotely inspire me. They're incredibly boring, and no other character seemed remotely interesting. Literally the scattered bits of lore were more fun to read than to actually play the game.

Combat and navigation is just.. blergh. It all relies on surprise factor, but then the game sends you to places you've already been and the areas offer nothing new? Cool, I saw the weird floating hanging people, cool I saw people jump out from behind computer monitors.

Now what?

Well you are put into really annoying boss fights / puzzles. Not hard. Annoying. Yes. Get past this big ball of confetti that is immune to damage and seeks you out, all while trying to get inside its cage to get somewhere else.

Whoever wrote up the environmental lore and such? Yeah they should have written the plot. No way same people did it. And maybe they should have spent less of the budget on graphics and more on getting actually fun gameplay in... or hiring a voice actor who doesn't make me nod off.

The game really relies on it being an activity you are doing with THE BOYS. Your bros. Your homies. Your mates. Thats where 99% of the enjoyment comes from, all screaming in VC over eachother and flaming as they aren't covering your ass and you set their ass on fire, and this stuff alone is a riot and what makes the game fun.

But to recommend a game in earnest, I have to assume you are looking for a review to convince you whether or not to buy it. And well.

I can't imagine the game being fun with randoms. The game replaces vacant player slots with AI, and doing solo runs isn't fun. I am absolutely never motivated to launch the game unless my and THE BOYS are all doing a session. The worst thing is like...

3 player sessions.

3.

What of all my other BOYS I want to shoot up some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Xenomorphs with? The game has a lot of classes. Why the ♥♥♥♥ only 3 players?

Beyond this there's another issue, specifically with leveling. As you progress, you get better attachments, guns, perks, for your played class... while all your other classes gather dust. And once you get far with one class? You can't really get your other class up to speed. Got a weekly mission to do stuff with the Gunner, but only have Engineer and Heavy leveled? Sucks to suck, go back to do earliest missions on lowest difficulty... which really sucks when the big selling point is playing with friends. Having to go back and grind up in areas you already did just wastes their time and makes you feel like a burden. So you double down on the class you main, and keep moving forwards with them.

These issues are worsened by the challenge card balance. Some cards are just... god tier to use. Huge amounts of credits and or experience at no extra risk? Hell yeah.

But then you get really cool (in theory) challenge cards like, yeah, all standard Xenomorphs are now explosive suicide bombers. And your friends scream with you as you suffer wave after wave of aliens that are sheer aids. The reward? Yeah no, less than the challenge card that does something silly like 'yeah bro uh, your radar stops working randomly every few seconds'. Don't mind how you and your friends are so high on adrenaline your heads spin like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ owls' and you are looking for any sign of movement, ignoring the scanner that shows where they come from.

It's a dumb fun game that tries to take itself seriously in ways that detract from the dumb fun. Expecting people to do daily missions? The game has so few quests to begin with. People who get their money's worth aren't gonna be those with a tonne of hours, but those with the greatest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ as friends.

Overall? Can't recommend the game to someone not going in with a specific plan to play with dedicated friends.

(Oh right, and a STILL NOT FIXED BUG that makes some missions unplayable in Co-Op)

Honestly? The game's got a unique art style and so many mechanics you never really see, and I can't give it too much trouble because you can see the devs absolutely put so much effort into this game.

But... I can't honestly recommend the game. You can progress super easily, or at extreme difficulty, without changing how you play, but merely getting lucky. Right buffs at the right time, right paths through the Underworld, and so on.

Most of the weapons feel really, really clunky to use. Maybe it's just my predisposition to liking to do more than button mash and actually think about how I go about something, but combat is just, avoid environmental hazards (which some are sheer ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pains in the ass) and crunch up various enemies.

And thats its. You do this over and over again, unlock new dialogue, see things change... but the gameplay loop isn't strong enough to keep me tied to it to drive my desire to replay it, and thus unlock it. The dungeons themselves aren't terribly fun.

I played the game to entertain my sister tbh. She watched, I played. Thats why I got it. But I can't really recommend this game. It IS NOT BAD! It just is not my cup of tea.

I know there's a huge amount of disappointment in the game not living up to dev promises, and especially how bad it runs on ancient prehistoric consoles. But even with my mid-range (at best) PC, I can run the game fine on decent graphics.

Now... what's the good, the bad and the ugly?

Well, Cyberpunk 2077 isn't amazing, but it isn't bad. Does it hold a candle to the Witcher 3? Hell the ♥♥♥♥ no.

However, the sheer depth of content and artistically unique world that gets presented to you really immerses you. I think immersion is something it does really well so long as you do not touch a car, and even then, I assume futuristic materials with really really awful car regulations could yield these coffins on wheels? Maybe? Stretching it.

A lot of gun designs are friggin awesome, as is the sheer clash of attire elements. Ugly but in a good way? Kind of like the designs of a lot of Fallout stuff. Glamorously hideous. Fantastically atrocious. The game is profane and so wrong in the best of ways, the world itself looks like something nastier than your browser history. It looks like a world that has outlived morals. You feel drawn in to this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ world where people are killing eachother over pointless things and don't form connections in sane ways.

I think my single most telling experience, and in my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ opinion, the best quest in the game, is a random sidequest. Some dude on death row finds god and a journalist company wants to sensationalise... and have him get crucified live. The lighting cast in that final scene, having to try and goad this guy on as he has doubts to get my paycheque in the end and truly embrace depravity? Holy ♥♥♥♥ it was an impactful quest. A lot of the sidequests are real bangers and really suck you in to a world thats really too far gone.

Now the main story? e h. Most of the missions aren't fun in the first half. They really aren't. Hell, the overall plot just... sucks away at the idea of your character having dreams and fantasies of grandeur. The game really fails as an RPG unfortunately. Your background gives an occasional dialogue option. Whoopee! Thats it. You are given the illusion of choice but it never really matters what path you take. Worst is? Once main quest is complete... the classic 'back to before said quest took place' to avoid any ACTUAL CONSEQUENCES! I know a lot of RPGs do this... hell even the Witcher 3 did. But it's such a lazy move.

The game is fun if you try and let yourself be a part of it. Its an action-adventure game. Not an RPG.

However... there are a lot of amazing mods that well, make the game into an RPG. Modding isn't really supported atm, but hey, the chads at the Nexus don't give a ♥♥♥♥! I 100% recommend trying the Full Gameplay Rebalance and Life Paths mods (compatible w/ some editing0

I'll come right out and say it.

The game used to be an incredibly immersive experience with a wide range of playables, simple yet functional mechanics that largely was carried off the amazing sound design and stellar animations, models, textures of the playable assets.

Combat has ranged from a joke to fun as hell over the 5+ years I have had the game. Combat's really what I am playing for, as well as the simple stakes, eat or be eaten, and the loss from a mistake sending anyone back to the start. As someone who stuck to official servers, with no such thing as revives or p2w grows, the game was awesome, a no man's land with only a few rules. Sure streamers got special treatment, but the experience overall was fun so long as you knew where to find action. Balance wasn't great, with a lot of awful classes that take forever to grind for (in this game, you spawn as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ versions of your end product and need to survive until you can actually play a somewhat balanced experience) such as the Parasaurolophus that was eaten by everything or the Pachycephalosaurus that couldn't fight even similarly sized animals without exploding from bloodloss, or the semiaquatic Suchomimus who swam slower than a Tyrannosaurus...

But it was still fun, especially with friends, and the world felt alien and unsettling at times with great music and unforgiving combat.

The game is none of these things anymore. The "legacy" experience, which houses all the great playables people really care about, it wasn't perfect by any means, but it could have been touched up. Sure, it didn't have the necessary framework for things like grapples or kill moves, but it WORKED. It was serviceable and fun. Now, the abandoned legacy, what you have when you buy the game and fresh install? A hellscape filled with hackers and 'fake' servers, the officials long dead and a few community servers clinging to life.

The beta branch, which is really more of a tech demo if we are being honest here, is called evrima. It sucks. The sound design makes every animal feel small, movement feels clunkier than before and to top it off, it is not only a horribly buggy mess plagued with crashes and character deletion... but it also just lacks in content, the one thing that legacy was carried by.

I'm only still here bc of stockholm syndrome. I remember when the game was fun as hell, and all the great memories that I've made. But evrima develops so, so terribly slow, keeps failing to meet the expectations the devs set themselves and the game gradually is losing its magic. Its just boring. It lacks the eye candy that made legacy acceptable, the diverse range of matchups, and so on. Sure, evrima has better scent system and more combat mechanics... but it isn't enough to really warrant the price of all the other things wrong with it.

If you don't want a really in-depth review read another.

I went into this game blind - a beyond excited friend told me that this game was getting a port to PC and I'd forgotten the game even existed after having seen the first trailer mention it was going to be a PS4 exclusive. So we wait out the countdown, he buys and installs it before me... and then refunds because he's one of those plagued with issues. I checked other reviews and noticed most people who said they could play were using AMD CPUs and or GPUs, of which I use an AMD GPU, so I went with my gut feeling and got the game despite his issues. If you use NVidia, wait this one out until they fixed their issues, but my mid-end AMD is running the game all on High or above (RX 580 8GB) so if you are of the few AMD users on the Internet, give this game a try.

31hrs in, and I haven't even been to the main city, "Meridian". Why? Because the gameplay loop is a perfected version of the Far Cry one; you don't have a carryweight but must upgrade each 'satchel' by hunting down and brutally murdering various machines (almost all of which are a bliss to fight) and innocent defenseless woodland critters (the only game I've played where wild Boar aren't the worlds biggest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, even the geese are wusses). I'll get more on machine combat later since it's the main selling point, but running around and figuring out their weaknesses and most efficient way to kill them quickly is so fun I haven't gone far in the main quest. I've also spent a great deal of time grabbing collectibles, in the same vein as Far Cry, except all of them have a nice little extra reward in some worldbuilding, mainly about before Walking With Robots happened, and coupled with the promise of something extra for finding them (if I ever end up reaching Meridian) it really manages to sidetrack you exceptionally well. I remember trying to farm some Grazers (grinder deer lads) by running up a cliff after going to a campfire, so the lethal fall down would cause them to respawn. Instead I landed in some underground cave and discovered some super endgame armour I absolutely HAD to find a way to obtain. Just an anecdote there; along your path you'll see big monsters and get the itch to try out messing with them or see bandit camps to raid.

You overall don't have many quests - this isn't the Witcher III or Skyrim, but the quality of the quests is far and above that of almost any other game. Not a single quest had no interesting turn and the side quests have been a riot, some with multiple intense bossfights slipped in that I absolutely adored. There aren't any basic fetch or kill quests - any that seem like that are gonna pull a fast one on you. Dialogue, facial expressiveness all ooze a degree of personality normally only reserved for main characters in other Single Player RPGs. I like this quality over quantity, since normally you have a million bad quests and it feels like your quest log gets swamped with chores, but in Horizon you're actually gonna go after the few quests in between your hunting sprees.

So the main thing, how's the combat loop? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome. Granted, my experience is on Hard, so I can't speak to Storymode or others, but no fight ever felt unfair given it's kinda... broken on both ends if that makes sense? Offensively you are overpowered as ♥♥♥♥ if you take the time to prepare for a fight, bring the right weapons, swap to the right armor and focus down their weakpoints. It's a powertrip, not Dark Souls. However. To an equal capacity. If you don't prep for fights you are dead or wasting so many resources to barely scrape by you've had a net loss. Now at this point fights don't feel as insanely fun because, going in Guns Blazing and getting my ass kicked if honestly more fun than seeing giant Thunderjaws and going, mmm yes, time to refuel on this really annoying material for the single best ammo I've found so far (Tearblast), but it's still satisfying as hell, and despite how it has gotten a lot easier, I have several higher difficulties to run down for future runs and you always feel like you earned your kills because you learned to exploit weaknesses. In no game have I ever actually used every single tool they throw your way, normally I button mash and end up powering through regardless, meanwhile I'm using traps, bombs, various ammo types, slow time, dodge, tripwires, Heavy attacks, light attacks, knocking multiple arrows, using terrain, EVERYTHING is so damn useful that the only thing I don't use are Potions, not bc they are bad, but bc they are stupid OP (70-100% reductions on element = prep makes any fight a breeze if you have good melee and ranged armour).

The crafting and currency system are lowkey the best I've seen in gaming. Well mainly the currency. Ok so. Metal Shards right? You use them to upgrade, craft AND buy things, which actually removed the biggest issue in single player RPGs: the inevitable accumulation of wealth to solve all problems. You run out of things to buy and everything is an effortless, thoughtless, shut up and take my money. The game's costs don't catch up to how much of a giant dragon's hoard you make, and it really not only ruins the game experience, but it also destroys immersion seeing everyone else barely scraping by in games like Witcher or Skyrim or even Far Cry while you casually are ballin. I'm not ballin. I'm level 34 as of writing and constantly have to be really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ considerate with spending because Shards is ammo and ammo is staying the ♥♥♥♥ alive and making more Shards.
It's genuis and I applaud the game's devs for figuring out the enigma. You can burn Metal Shards fast and if you aren't efficient at hunting you will struggle with upgrading your gear and purchasing resources. Having to keep a safety net of Shards in mind is one of the most immersive and interesting things a game has made me think of lmao.

Graphically and audio-wise the game's a stunner, like that girl you won't ever actually manage to date and seems too perfect for ya. Not gonna dwell there bc graphics aren't something I prioritise (if I don't like something I just slap on Reshade and make myself like it hehe)

Some of the only cons are weapon and armor variety. I'm a lootahoolic and quite frankly it's a huge ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dissapointment. You basically have a few weapons with basic upgrades you buy that add 1 ammo, and another upgrade slot. Functionally they are: Rattler (worthless shotgun, dont bother), Sharpshooter (best human killer and also just spam Tear when you have ammo), Warbow (situational element usage, not most common), Tripcaster (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing and not as situational as the game makes you think), Hunting Bow (upgrade handling for machinegun bow, fire arrow spam ftw), Sling (something I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ abhore using) and Ropecaster (never used bc it has never felt necessary when I can stun via tripwires or warbow). I've yet to see a unique weapon or a weapon ever drop - Heavy Weapons can be dropped off some rare spawn enemies but you can't keep them so fat RIP right there, bc ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ are heavy weapons fun to use. From a giant sawblade launcher to an electromagnetic grenade launcher casually vacuuming up ammo nearby? ALL ARE AWESOME! It's such a shame more awesome weapons can't be kept and carried around :/

The armor designs all range from meh to ugly as hell, only some reached 'nice' levels, this isn't Witcher, and it's unfortunate bc you spend all your time looking at Aloy but all the armour sets look like a mishmash and the colours clash atrociously. Dear god, some sets are good but ♥♥♥♥ me I cant use them for more than a few minutes. Waiting for the chads on Nexus Mods to pretty them up for me.

I'll put my thoughts on the 'lootboxes' and the Story of the game in the comments, as the first comment.

Controls feel horribly clunky - whether it's on the human side or dinosaur side. Dinosaur movement was like driving 4 wheelers drunk. Don't ask how I know that's an accurate comparison. But it is.

Dinosaur handling felt so bad that I couldn't enjoy myself using any of the ones I tried - Carno (who I got near top of the leaderboard on first try, so it isn't even an issue with me not using them right, I got a ton of kills and only died 3 times) feels so atrocious with its weird sprinting, you'll slow to a stop when near full stamina and it's so counter-intuitive I just couldn't. Cryo and Dilo felt so bizarre and really out of place with the high-paced nature of the TDM. Weak, slow, fragile and with an annoying to aim projectile. Tyrannosaurus was terrible, I felt like such a lumbering lard of ♥♥♥♥ with no good stamina regen, mobility or even top speed and its bite felt unreliable, and tail whip also felt ineffective. Novaraptor was just an annoying, run in and steal kills, and felt really bad to use. Oviraptor felt like it wasn't landing hits when it should. Tapejara;s controls felt wonky.

Gunplay felt bad for all the humans I tried before I refunded - Pathfinder, Trapper and Commando. I had fun with Pathfinder sneaking around getting free assists via spray and pray, but the fact that it's RNG to end up with a class I enjoy is terrible. Commando was a nice suicide bomber, had fun trying that out. Trapper double guns felt fun to meme with. But I don't enjoy any of the dinosaurs so whenever I ended up with them it was 15min of just doing whatever. And it could be twice in a row before I'd get the faction I had remotely any fun out of.

~90 min played, equates to 6 TDM matches - half were dinosaur, half were human. I didn't enjoy the dinosaurs, which is a shame because that'd be the main appeal. But this game design of animals handling like vehicles is not for me.

$13.99 CAD for something that's not fun for me half the time spent playing isn't worth the price.

This is a truly breathtaking game! I had a blast playing it, and i've had over 300hrs play time on it! One of the greatest games i've ever played, infact. I'd recommend it, but more so if you play with mods. It gives the already epic experience a completely new energy. Over all, a superb game! :D