InfernoAKM
2014
Decent story and liked the atmosphere. I had an issue with what felt like forced mouse acceleration so it felt very annoying to aim. Hated the driving and the stupid chases which went on for too long (helicopter one in particular).
2018
Nice graphics and fights, but it's quite possibly the most bland and boring RPG I've every played.
8 characters and they barely interact with each other who just happen to join each other in fights. Could've made a big overarching story with major crossovers between some of the character's stories and mainly just make an interesting world out of it. Instead it's just going through each character's individual lacklustre story.
8 characters and they barely interact with each other who just happen to join each other in fights. Could've made a big overarching story with major crossovers between some of the character's stories and mainly just make an interesting world out of it. Instead it's just going through each character's individual lacklustre story.
The parkour and combat are smoother than the first, but it suffers from Ubisoft's open world cancer and has way worse route design.
When I first tried the beta for this, I had no interest in the game having played the first one extensively and enjoying it. Decided to play this recently after many years of not playing the Division and it's a very solid game as someone who finished the base game on solo.
The story is extremely bland whereas the first one was a lot better, however I played the game as more of a straight looter shooter while not being interested in the lore.
There seems to be a lot of build diversity and while I do prefer the darker and more post-apocalyptic vibes from the first game, this game still looks great. It's a solid game if you don't care about anything but shooting, getting loot and min-maxing your character's build.
The story is extremely bland whereas the first one was a lot better, however I played the game as more of a straight looter shooter while not being interested in the lore.
There seems to be a lot of build diversity and while I do prefer the darker and more post-apocalyptic vibes from the first game, this game still looks great. It's a solid game if you don't care about anything but shooting, getting loot and min-maxing your character's build.
Not a bad game. Bayek is a cool main character, but it's the beginning of the terribly bloated open world RPG AC games, taking on the Ubisoft formula.
2004
Played this as a kid when it first came out in 2004 and recently played through the world tour again. It remains as one of my favourite games ever and tops most arcade car games today. Would love a modern day version of this, but given the rather bland state of NFS, I wouldn't trust EA with it.
It's the best looking game, has the same solid game play and the game performance is much better (animations not tied to FPS this time!), but the drop in writing quality and seriousness compared to the previous game is ridiculous. From having real time cutscenes to many pointless pre-rendered ones which takes you out of the game for a bit.
The change in tone compared to the previous games was done in such a strange way. It was almost like they were trying to Borderlands it, except it just comes off as stupid and out of place considering the story and tone they've been building.
The only memorable funny bit was the two Klan members interacting with the Nazi soldier.
The change in tone compared to the previous games was done in such a strange way. It was almost like they were trying to Borderlands it, except it just comes off as stupid and out of place considering the story and tone they've been building.
The only memorable funny bit was the two Klan members interacting with the Nazi soldier.
Good story and cool puzzles.
2020
Enjoyed this a lot. The aesthetics are well done, the movement and combat is very fluid and smooth.
Main issues though are the pretty uninteresting story (which isn't the worst as for me the gameplay itself was the main focus in something like this) and the pretty terrible boss fights. That being said, I wouldn't exactly know how to make good boss fights for this kind of game and it didn't take up massive parts of the game. Maybe more of the T-073-Ms and less of the others.
Main issues though are the pretty uninteresting story (which isn't the worst as for me the gameplay itself was the main focus in something like this) and the pretty terrible boss fights. That being said, I wouldn't exactly know how to make good boss fights for this kind of game and it didn't take up massive parts of the game. Maybe more of the T-073-Ms and less of the others.
2016
One of the best FPS campaigns I've played.
Decent enough LEGO game.
The world and story is excellent, however the mechanics have really aged which were not enjoyable for me. May give this another shot in the future.
The way Ubisoft has treated this series over the years has made be never want another Splinter Cell game to be made again as much as I love the franchise (mainly the first game and Chaos Theory). You can guarantee they'd make an open world like MGSV but with the usual Ubisoft formula cancer.
For the past few releases they turned the game from a stealth shooter to a horrible cover shooter. This game is an attempt to make a bit of a hybrid while trying to get that old Splinter Cell feeling back. It does not work. The missions and stealth design in those missions are worse than the 2002 game.
Over 10 years and in the end they've regressed. It's a sad end to what could've been a fantastic stealth franchise, but I very much doubt that they'll ever be able to capture the feeling of games like Chaos Theory, especially the state Ubisoft is in right now.
For the past few releases they turned the game from a stealth shooter to a horrible cover shooter. This game is an attempt to make a bit of a hybrid while trying to get that old Splinter Cell feeling back. It does not work. The missions and stealth design in those missions are worse than the 2002 game.
Over 10 years and in the end they've regressed. It's a sad end to what could've been a fantastic stealth franchise, but I very much doubt that they'll ever be able to capture the feeling of games like Chaos Theory, especially the state Ubisoft is in right now.
Terrible PC port which made it unplayable.
2023
A lot of mixed feelings about this game. I think overall it's ok but frustrating would be the word to describe this because it could've been so much better and I have a lot to say on that. Would've rated it a bit lower had the game not looked as nice or ran as well on my PC.
Intro was really dragged out and should've been halved, especially that time in the car. I liked the premise of the story but it was frustratingly predictable almost all the way through. Very few characters were memorable and it presented itself as a bit of a watered-down BioShock.
For a game that seems heavily political with a whole utopian Soviet Union theme, it didn't really go into much depth about the politics (it was a very barebones with some very occasional moments that were above surface level). There were parts where P-3 said he doesn't care about it and sometimes had the option to say you did/didn't care. To me it's clear they tried to appeal to a broader audience by not heavily politicising the game, but you can't both have an obviously very political design choice and try to water down the politics for those that aren't interested in it while expecting it to work well. It's like the story and concepts had the potential to be as wide as an ocean and could've been as deep but they chose to fill it as deep as a puddle. Massively missed opportunity in my view but I get why a lot of people would prefer less political exploration. Then again, BioShock does it very well where even the average player enjoys it.
Dialogue sometimes felt like it dragged on too long but generally enjoyed it and the voice acting. Most will probably find P-3 to be really obnoxious and annoying but I liked him most of the time. However, being pissed off 99% of the time contributed to him a pretty shallow character. Not only that, but he wasn't really questioning anything about himself until the "big reveal" despite all the people and signs telling him something's wrong.
The "big reveal" about P-3 felt sudden as there was no proper development up to that point, it was just "by the way you're xyz". There were moments where he could see/feel something is contradicting what he thinks is reality, but he has a convo with the glove, asks questions and then just doesn't process any new information as if it never happened. It's a relatively short game but they really could've made P-3 a lot better than an angry man with zero deduction skills where the glove has to do it for him.
Some of the good things about the gameplay: glove upgrade system which is fully refundable so you can experiment with different builds (I didn't bother, I was using the shield and Shok the entire game while maxing out character upgrades), looting by holding F and scanning across lootable sections was great, liked the guns and they felt useful and you have to think about how to approach groups of enemies as they can all easily knock you down. Music also slaps hard.
A lot of little things annoyed me though: robots felt like damage sponges and I prefer to not have to grind these types of games out so I switched to easy to enjoy the combat more. I didn't find the combat particularly difficult (dodging felt clunky though), just that putting many many bullets into the guys with mustaches for ages didn't appeal to me. Inventory management is terrible - I can stack 90 rounds for my AK in one slot, a few rounds for my rocket launcher in another but I can't stack more than 1 of those little health pods? Game should've been way more linear by cutting out the open world area. I understand the reason for it (padding content for a longer game being one) but it's not fun to lock things like attachments and weapon upgrades behind exploration in an uninteresting open world. I never bothered and beelined for the main objectives, upgrading the weapons to what was unlocked already. Map is terrible to navigate through, didn't feel intuitive to use and I basically never used it. At least beelining to the main objective was pretty straightforward.
The game does look amazing and ran pretty well on my system (3070 with a Ryzen 7900X on near-max settings at 90+ fps, only dipping as low as 70 in some areas). Very occasional stutters but nothing terrible. I don't know how it was on release but nearly a year since release and it's in a pretty good state.
I'd recommend this on a big sale (at least 50%, I played this on a PC game pass trial) and not bothering with the open world part. The game isn't interesting enough to warrant spending more than double the time I did on the game for some upgrades (unless you really want a specific upgrade).
Intro was really dragged out and should've been halved, especially that time in the car. I liked the premise of the story but it was frustratingly predictable almost all the way through. Very few characters were memorable and it presented itself as a bit of a watered-down BioShock.
For a game that seems heavily political with a whole utopian Soviet Union theme, it didn't really go into much depth about the politics (it was a very barebones with some very occasional moments that were above surface level). There were parts where P-3 said he doesn't care about it and sometimes had the option to say you did/didn't care. To me it's clear they tried to appeal to a broader audience by not heavily politicising the game, but you can't both have an obviously very political design choice and try to water down the politics for those that aren't interested in it while expecting it to work well. It's like the story and concepts had the potential to be as wide as an ocean and could've been as deep but they chose to fill it as deep as a puddle. Massively missed opportunity in my view but I get why a lot of people would prefer less political exploration. Then again, BioShock does it very well where even the average player enjoys it.
Dialogue sometimes felt like it dragged on too long but generally enjoyed it and the voice acting. Most will probably find P-3 to be really obnoxious and annoying but I liked him most of the time. However, being pissed off 99% of the time contributed to him a pretty shallow character. Not only that, but he wasn't really questioning anything about himself until the "big reveal" despite all the people and signs telling him something's wrong.
The "big reveal" about P-3 felt sudden as there was no proper development up to that point, it was just "by the way you're xyz". There were moments where he could see/feel something is contradicting what he thinks is reality, but he has a convo with the glove, asks questions and then just doesn't process any new information as if it never happened. It's a relatively short game but they really could've made P-3 a lot better than an angry man with zero deduction skills where the glove has to do it for him.
Some of the good things about the gameplay: glove upgrade system which is fully refundable so you can experiment with different builds (I didn't bother, I was using the shield and Shok the entire game while maxing out character upgrades), looting by holding F and scanning across lootable sections was great, liked the guns and they felt useful and you have to think about how to approach groups of enemies as they can all easily knock you down. Music also slaps hard.
A lot of little things annoyed me though: robots felt like damage sponges and I prefer to not have to grind these types of games out so I switched to easy to enjoy the combat more. I didn't find the combat particularly difficult (dodging felt clunky though), just that putting many many bullets into the guys with mustaches for ages didn't appeal to me. Inventory management is terrible - I can stack 90 rounds for my AK in one slot, a few rounds for my rocket launcher in another but I can't stack more than 1 of those little health pods? Game should've been way more linear by cutting out the open world area. I understand the reason for it (padding content for a longer game being one) but it's not fun to lock things like attachments and weapon upgrades behind exploration in an uninteresting open world. I never bothered and beelined for the main objectives, upgrading the weapons to what was unlocked already. Map is terrible to navigate through, didn't feel intuitive to use and I basically never used it. At least beelining to the main objective was pretty straightforward.
The game does look amazing and ran pretty well on my system (3070 with a Ryzen 7900X on near-max settings at 90+ fps, only dipping as low as 70 in some areas). Very occasional stutters but nothing terrible. I don't know how it was on release but nearly a year since release and it's in a pretty good state.
I'd recommend this on a big sale (at least 50%, I played this on a PC game pass trial) and not bothering with the open world part. The game isn't interesting enough to warrant spending more than double the time I did on the game for some upgrades (unless you really want a specific upgrade).