I never had the chance to play Republic Commando when I was a child but loved the trailers. So the nostalgia factor doesn't have an effect on me. I'm expecting to get a lot of hate but I don't really understand why is there such a big praise for this game.

I will begin with the cons: bad AI even on the hardest difficulty (squad mates doing damage to you, getting on your way and even enemies just standing and doing nothing), nothing special about the gameplay - enemies are bullet sponges, the shooting is dull, weapons don't feel impactful (except the shotgun) but melee does the most damage. The game doesn't support widescreen resolutions and has terrible mouse acceleration but thanks to the modding community there are fixes. There is no lore, the campaign is just 3 linear and repetitive missions. Just as it gets interesting - the game ends.

However, there are still some pros - great OST, the game is actually quite challenging even on normal difficulty, cheesy dialogues, the HUD is very well made, and this is so far the only Star Wars game from a soldier's perspective and not from force-sensitive characters.

Before playing Metro 2033 or Last Light, I highly recommend reading the books. You won't regret it!

As for the games - other developers need to take notes. It's just a phenomenal-looking game. The atmosphere is immersive and engaging. From the lighting and sound effects to the models of the mutants and all the factions (except the female characters which for some reason look bad). I also recommend changing the audio to Russian.

The shooting is satisfying and challenging especially on "Ranger Hardcore" difficulty. The game has a system where with certain actions you earn or lose moral points which determine the ending. Some of the mechanics I haven't seen in any other game. The watch in the game is synchronized with your PC. When taking damage, your gas mask starts to crack and break. Rain, blood or mud will often cover your mask and block your vision so you can simply wipe it.

It's just amazing what a small Ukrainian studio managed to create. Most of the complaints about the Metro series are that they are too linear. Well, they are made linearly on purpose to tell a story.

Fallout 4 is the perfect example of why people should stop overhyping anything.
Is it the Fallout title we all wanted? No. Is it a bad game? ♥♥♥♥ no.

It's a weak title from the series because of the simplification of the RPG elements and making it far more casual. Still, it has the best gameplay in the series, a beautiful world with a lot of lore, and small stories.

Truth be told, Bethesda never understood the Fallout universe. The first two Fallout titles were clever examples of retrofuturism. In Bethesda’s games, the idea seems to be that Fallout takes place in a world where the bombs fell in the 1950s. Or rather, in a world where the culture of the 1950s lasted an extra 120 years and even endured through the apocalypse. And that’s what the world of Fallout is. It’s not the 1950s. It’s the year 2077 as the people of the 1950s would have imagined it.

A great video explaining the ideas behind the original Fallout lore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8U4k2Ik6yk&feature=emb_title

To enjoy it, you have to look at it as a great shooter in the Fallout universe. To this day, New Vegas holds the top and I hope Bethesda can learn from their mistakes.

The Witcher 3 is spectacular!
I have never felt empty after finishing a game before.
The improvements between the three titles are another reason to appreciate what CDPR has created.

I will try to make a short review of the things that made me fall in love with this masterpiece:
• Excellent lore and storyline based on Andrzej Sapkowski's novels.
• Beautifully crafted world where every __cpLocation is unique, combined with fabulous graphics.
• The soundtrack is masterfully composed and it fits just right in every situation.
• Loveable characters and you feel connected to them. This is one of the strongest aspects of the series and novels.
• Well-written dialogues.
• Detailed and immersive cutscenes. The cinematography on some of them is simply phenomenal and breathtaking.
• A lot of choices to make and they do matter. There are 36 different ending variations, 3 of them are the major ends with a cutscene.
• All the main and side quests are high quality and very enjoyable. The monster contracts are also great.
• This is a mature game - there is plenty of nudity and gore.
• The DLCs contain more content than most of the 60$ games. Not to mention there are 16 free DLCs (new quests and gear).
• Enjoyable combat. It's nothing that special but you have to learn your enemies' weaknesses and their attack patterns. The game is quite challenging on a higher difficulty.
• The game is long but you don't feel it because of how much you enjoy it.
• Minor details, quests and conversations that can be easily missed. After 5 years, there are still new things the community finds.

Cons:
• The game has an end.
• Other games become harder to get into.
• Unbalanced on higher difficulties.
• You can get unstoppable on NG+ with the right build, removing any challenge.
• Some small bugs and clippings.
• Movement is sometimes clunky.

The Witcher hasn't aged well. The storyline and the atmosphere are very well done. It has the darkest atmosphere in the whole trilogy, just as it should be. I love the old-school vibes and mechanics. But that's it.

The combat is clunky and too easy even on the hardest difficulty. If you play it right, you can become immortal. Even the boss fights feel like fighting a normal enemy. It took me around 1-2 min to beat the final boss. The dialogues are bad - did a child write them? At least the voice acting is good.

I encountered some annoying bugs. For example, sometimes I couldn't talk to anyone nor loot or draw my weapon. The only way to fix it was by saving and restarting the whole game. I had to redo the whole last 20 min of the game because of this (and because I didn't feel the need to save). Sometimes instead of a cinematic, I would get a black screen and again have to restart the whole game. In some of the more populated areas, my FPS would drop from 110 to 40. I understand it's an old game but it's still annoying.

In terms of equipment - don't expect much. There are only 3 armours, the last one you get is in the final chapter. Not much choice in weapons either. You end up with a lot of coins... and nothing to do with them.

Despite everything, I will still recommend it simply because it's The Witcher. For people who are just entering the world of The Witcher - don't hesitate! Read the books by Andrzej Sapkowski and continue with the games. It was cheap on sale (2€ only). With an open mindset, it's easy to get used to the old mechanics and clunky combat. The Witcher made me appreciate even more what a masterpiece The Witcher 3 is!

Bioshock just ticks all the boxes. Right from the beginning, it becomes obvious that the people that worked on it are very talented.

Bioshock starts with one of the single most incredible openings in the FPS genre if not video games in general. Fantastic level design and art style inspired heavily by Beaux Arts and Art Deco. You discover and start to understand the story and the lore by exploring Rapture. Even different corpses on the ground tell their own story. Every element around the city is full of details, character and charm from vending machines to the Splicers (the main enemy type), giving you an insight into the events that led them to where they are. The atmosphere is phenomenal and unique.

Gameplay and the shooting are addictive, just like old-school shooters. The fights with the Big Daddies can be tense and brutal until the later levels where you already have enough equipment to deal with them quickly.

Most of the negative reviews are because of the remastered version. I don't know if they patched it or I'm simply playing a different version from the others but I haven't encountered any bugs/glitches. The game never crashed and I was able to run it at a stable 200 FPS. The only "complain" I have is the lack of graphics options but It's not that big of a deal.

So now, would you kindly buy Bioshock?

DOOM I and DOOM II defined the FPS genre!
Thanks to them later we got shooters like Duke Nukem, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Quake and RTCW. RTCW was the first game I ever played but DOOM II is the game that left an impact on me.

Playing this in 2018 brought me a lot of nostalgia for the times when old-school shooters were simple, smooth, fast, sometimes over the top and always challenging. Times when people were not that sensitive and easily offended. The market was still not flooded with overpriced uncompleted generic looking games.

The gaming demographics were very small, especially in post-communist countries and not many people had PCs. I was one of the lucky kids to have a PC just because my father and his friends saw the potential of computer tech development at the beginning of the '90s. Those were wild years in the ex-communist bloc - the transition from communism to the free market, years of violence, drugs, uncertainty and everybody looking for a way to survive. Getting a PC and video games was far harder and involved having connections with people from Western countries. Except for working with PCs, something rare for that time, my father and his friends have spent hours and hours after work playing DOOM II multiplayer. He didn't believe me that you can still run old shooters on a modern PC until I started the GZDoom port. I brought him 20 years back and additionally showed him Brutal DOOM. Well, you can say he was quite happy.

When CDPR announced a new Witcher game, I was disappointed to find out it was a card game. I simply hate card games! However, after reading a couple of reviews and watching gameplay, it turned out to not be a typical card game so I decided to once again support CDPR.

No regrets! The art style is phenomenal. The gameplay - is addictive and fun to learn. A lot of the Gwent fans criticize it for being too easy but that's certainly not true for people new to this genre. I beat the game on the medium difficulty but I have to admit - I read a lot of guides. Liked the idea of the puzzles.

Most importantly - Thronebreaker gives the fans of the books even more depth to the Witcher lore, particularly events and characters. For the hours you get, it's worth the price. It was also very satisfying to finish all the achievements.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is one of the finest RPGs ever released!
When I heard a realistic RPG about Medieval Bohemia being developed by a small Czech studio, I didn't believe they would handle it. As I have always said, the ex-Communist block is full of talented people.

KCD is one of a kind! Finished every single quest, with every possible option thanks to saving and all the DLCs. If you are impatient and want non-stop action - this game is not for you.

Unlike most RPGs, in Kingdom Come Deliverance you are not "the chosen one" or a powerful mutant or anything special. You are an ordinary peasant, a nobody, a commoner. Uneducated son of a blacksmith with nothing to your name. And you are never handed anything. You have to earn everything and skills must be learned on your own. Fights will be lost before they can be won. All of this combined makes a great experience that is extremely satisfying. After every victory, you are left with a feeling that you genuinely earned something.

As opposed to others, I will start with the cons.
• My biggest problem with KCD is, of course, the combat. At the beginning of your journey, your character doesn't know how to fight and the combat is extremely awkward. That's a great game design and I liked the idea. However, even when you reach a high level of warfare and your preferred weapon, the combat remains clunky, not as much as in the beginning but still annoying. Especially in a group fight. And most of the time you will fight a group of enemies. I know, even in real life is a nightmare to fight multiple people at the same time but here I'm pointing out only the clunkiness. I didn't have problems with destroying Cuman or bandit camps on my own. All I had to do is walk backwards and press Q at the right moment. By the end of the game, I maxed both maces and swords and I can say maces are extremely easy to use. The peasant Henry beat a German knight with one hit because I pressed Q at the right moment. How is this realistic? I don't understand why all "realistic" games have to be clunky. It's funny how all good RPGs have problems with the combat system. I hope Warhorse Studio will manage to improve the combat for the next title and make it smooth.

CLUNKY =/= REALISTIC

• I hate how opponents die. They don't make a sound or anything, they just tumble over silently. When you hit them, you won't see any impact. No gore, nothing. It's like hitting a tree.

• No real armour and weapons progress. All you have to do is rob shops during the night, sell the loot and straight away buy the best armour and weapons. You won't receive any special equipment from finishing quests. The best gear is simply sold in bigger cities. If you want to roleplay, kill as many bandits and Cumans as you can and you will have the money in no time. That's what I did, at least. You can equip any armour even if it's a higher level than you are and you will get a small buff but nothing serious.

• KCD had a rough release with a lot of serious technical problems and glitches. Most of them are already fixed. However, some glitches are VERY annoying. Like for example if you want to destroy a Cuman camp during the night while they sleep and after saving - suddenly all the Cumans have changed their positions and are awake with their torches lit. Or the bushes - I hate the bushes. They are like walls but you can get stuck in them. During one of the DLCs, the main character decided to fight only with their hands. That's quite...medieval.

• If you want to get the DLCs - wait for a sale. They are not worth it much, except for A Woman's Lot but I will write about it in the pros. The DLCs are short and don't add to the character development or the story. Just a couple more hours to spend in-game.

• The ending was... bad. I expected more to be honest. And the plot twist was predictable. It ruins the whole point of the story. I have the feeling that Warhorse Studio was just out of time or ideas and didn't know how to finish it. Also, a big part of the last quests was waiting. I suppose it was meant for the player to do side activities or quests before the ending but I had already done everything and had to wait.

Now with the pros:
• Most immersive RPG I have ever played. Hours feel like minutes. The world is masterfully crafted. You truly feel like you are in 15th-century Bohemia. Warhorse Studio spent a lot of time on the details - from the houses to the clothes, armour, weapons, shields, everything! When you hit an armoured enemy, you will see how his armour gets damaged and dents from your weapon.

• Sleep, energy and hunger mechanics are well thought out and never annoying. They add to the immersion. We see everything through Henry’s eyes, which supports the immersion, and lets us identify even more with the main character while we have to face the same challenges as we would in real life.

• The stealth system is so satisfying. All bandits, Cumans and NPCs sleep during the night and you can easily sneak up and kill them in their sleep or poison their food. I usually hate stealth in games but this time I plan a full stealth build for my second playthrough.

• Unique sidequests. Since you play as a commoner, there are some simple yet compelling and refreshing quests. For example learning to read, write and translate Latin. Or getting drunk with a priest. How about sneaking into a monastery and pretending to be a monk? In another quest, you can help a charlatan scare the whole village by dropping fake blood in the bathhouse, switching fresh meat with rotten meat in the butcher shop, switching eggs with charcoals... and maybe killing a random villager in his sleep. You probably have noticed - combat is not necessary. Most quests are all about the choices you make and the story rather than fighting dozens of enemies.

• A woman's lot is truly a great experience. At least the Theresa part. A female character done right without shovelling any feminism in our trouts. The story is about a woman and her challenges during and after the war, where she has to use all her skills to survive and help other villagers. I enjoyed it a lot and would say it's one of the best DLCs I have ever played, right after The Witcher 3 DLCs.

Conclusion
If my ode didn't already make it clear, Kingdom Come Deliverance is far from being perfect but I still adore it with all its flaws. If you are itching for a challenging RPG or you are simply a medieval-era fan, then you will not regret it. There is no denying that Warhorse Studio has created something special here. KCD is a triumph by any standard and certainly earns every bit of praise it gets.

Crysis is a special game for me.

This is the first game I ever bought and I still keep the physical copy. It was the reason why I met my best friend from childhood who sadly passed away in 2017. The game was known for having great graphics and a "But can it run Crysis" meme but I always thought it to be underrated.

Graphics aside, Crysis has a lot of bugs and atrocious AI.

On a positive note:

• Not many games give you this freedom of tackling the objectives the way you want.
• Crysis doesn't hold your hands. You can go gun blazing, snipe everyone from a distance, sneak pass or stealthy take down everyone.
• Back in 2007, the option to customise your guns on the go was innovative.
• The story is good. There are some missions where you can drive a tank and a V-TOL and it's a great change of pace.

Overall, I highly recommend getting Crysis outside of testing your PC.

Singularity is probably the best overlooked and under-appreciated FPS title. I'm sure the team that worked on it was quite talented and had great ideas but was pressured at the end by the big publisher and couldn't finish it the way they wanted to. You can find a lot of inspiration from Bioshock and Half-life plus some original ideas. The atmosphere and aesthetics are very well done. I liked the story - unique and intriguing. It would be great for a miniseries or even a book.

The graphics are good, nothing too fancy. The gunplay is quite generic, nothing new, nothing special. The final chapters feel rushed. The team was running out of time and financing.