Recent reviews by Shakestradamus

Gun-play & Equipment

-Solid gun-play. Sidearms are fun too. Shotguns and Marksman Rifles need a buff though as they are redundant.
-Crazy weapon customisation! Would like to see more detail about weapon attributes/performance.
-On the fly/in-game customisation would be good!
-Smoke grenades galore! Don't require a nerf but certainly requires a counter.
-Weapon accessibility needed and appreciated! What do I mean? We need a variety of colours, reticles/crosshairs for dot-sights and scopes for folks with vision impairments. None of this should be locked behind nonsense battle-passes. As this is a QoL concern, colour-blind folks cannot see a red-coloured dot and others will find it difficult to see a dot on their sight therefore other shapes will be appreciated.


Vehicular Combat/Handling

-Vehicles are a bit weird as a whole. Helicopters are very floaty as is the ATV and they just spin around too much like Beyblades.
-8-wheelers get stuck on stuff on certain maps like terrain and minor obstacles.
-All weapons are in a good spot although some will argue tank weapons need a buff.

UX/UI

-Weapon customisation screen has a lot of 'white space'. Harking back to my point about adding greater detail/info to weapon attributes/performance, they could also show us what each sight/scope actually looks like rather than loading into the Firing Range each time.
-Far too many menus that make navigation cumbersome (can't use WASD or arrow keys to navigate items) and therefore repelling.
-Menus have a lot of the colour grey and even use grey-on-grey text or grey-on-white (off-white) text. This is bad UI principles as they are not even using complimentary colours.
-Custom HUD options is needed and appreciated! Please allow us to adjust mini-map location/size/shape, change text colour, change crosshair thickness/shape/size/colour.

Fast, Fluid & Fun

Story is mega meh. Music is cool.

TLDR; Beautiful ambience & atmosphere with a sci-fi cyberpunk setting & philosophical narrative. If you enjoyed Disco Elysium you should definitely give this a try but refrain from comparing the two and don't expect as much depth in terms of player choice & game-play.

Story & World Building:

Overall a well written narrative which does a good job of exploring interesting characters and the world especially. However, I would like to see a greater exploration of characters and particularly some character development which can really challenge or shock us.

I enjoyed the world and lore that has been crafted. There are some really cool and vivid explorations of how civilisation has ingeniously found ways to survive as well as co-exist beyond earth. Additionally, this is a cyberpunk world so do expect themes of ultra capitalist domination and exploitation but nothing particularly unique in the content and manner its told.

Game-play:

The good is that its simple and streamlined which allows the narrative to flow fluidly. However, the bad is that there is a clear lack of depth, challenge, complexity and innovation. I would love to see some upgrades in the future.

Do Choices Matter?

To a degree but not as impactful as I would have liked and in comparison to something like Disco Elysium. It is a shame that none of the 3 character types have any significance in changing the outcome of an event. They are there more for superficial flavour. Hopefully greater variety in approach and outcome is added to future games.

Sound:

Soothing and ethereal music that perfectly defines the tone and atmosphere!!

Simple and fun gameplay that will either give older kids and adults a decent amount of play/pass time and should keep the younger ones engaged longer also especially if played as a group.

However all the gamemodes are fundamentally similar with slight changes in the objective. For 2.99 its a very good deal.

Gameplay
>Car handling is reworked. Feels heavier and not as fun to drive compared to last year in my opinion.
>Kerbs are so annoying this year and feel unrealistic. Particular kerbs will send you flying no matter what. No update has changed any of this.

Customisation
>Similar to last year it is straight up terrible. You can't truly utilise shapes to create your own custom logos or designs. EA have already implemented a rubbish season pass so by now we should know where this is going.

UI [b/]
>I have a beef with the new UI. The ultra bright white backdrop of all the menus is so annoying. I wish we could change it or have a dark mode option. Also, similar to last year, the menu tabs and the navigation colour tab are still the same which is just poor. What I mean by this is that when you cycle through the upper tabs using the shoulder/trigger buttons they have red on red or grey on grey. This makes it difficult to distinguish the colours and navigating the menu. Not a deal breaker but disappointing. I don't know if this is by design, mistake or just down to laziness.

At the time of review I have completed two playthroughs.

Summary: A solid and enjoyable text-based political RPG that will keep you engaged and guessing. Definitely worth a go at this price point.

I was looking for a political RPG style game as I wanted to try something new. Suzerain is a great place to try and immerse yourself in this type of game especially for less experienced players in this genre. From the get-go the writing pulls you in and is intriguing. The story very quickly chucks you into chaos which requires you to make a string of critical choices which impact a number of events over the course of the game. It is all a balancing act and this adds a lot of replay value.

My two main criticisms of this game are related to the feeling that the game seems rushed near the end. So first is pacing, which is actually well paced until you get to the final 1.5 acts. Events move along far too quickly during these sections of the act, some critical decisions that you make here either seem to have little no impact whilst other decisions have too great of an impact or are not given enough time to have an impact. The final act in particular seems to move way to quickly and I am sure it was rushed.
The second problem I have alluded to in the previous section which is about consistency and sometimes the lack of depth in some of the decision making processes. If memory serves me well than there is not an instance where you ever initiate any actions. Rather as President you only seem to react and accept outcomes. For example, during the alliance talks there is really no room to negotiate even though you are there precisely for that reason, to negotiate. You are there just to please you opposite number.

PROS:
- Greatly written narrative that is engaging and intriguing.
- Lots of critical decisions to make which is greatly adds to the immersion.
- Clean UI that is easy to follow and study info.
- Replayability

CONS:

- Although a great narrative is being told the story doesn't really belong to you. Perhaps this was intended by the developers.
- Limited game modes. I think Suzerain can benefit from a 'Free Mode' or 'Marathon Mode' in the post-game. If you want to play as a full blown dictator, go for it.

If you enjoy stealth games then I think you should most definitely give this game a go. You can get the full game alongside the DLC for very cheap. In terms of game-play Last Light does nothing special. But I would like to say that if you have played Metro 2033 then Last Light is an improvement across all fronts. The game really stands out because of its tone and atmospheric quality. The narrative is solid albeit nothing spectacular.