I never played the original NieR but i heard good things about it, after finishing NieR Automata and liking it, i decided to give this one a shot. Having not 100% it i cannot certainly give accurate verdict on it but generally i expected a lot better from it.

After waking up at the village i can immediately tell that the soundtrack is fantastic, as usual with NieR series its soundtrack themes are just top of the line, filled with emotions and good relaxing tones. I loved it there and kept wandering through the village while listening to it.

The story starts rough, i found the pacing to be very off when a lot of time from the first hours was about taking on missions from Popola which to me felt irrelevant and kind of fetchy in a way, i never found a reason to care about any of those main quests because why would i? the game barely bothers to explain and introduce them to me that it felt really pointless, it's like a daily job and im just working there.

Eventually i would stumble across some side quests, which i found to be abundantly boring, they all seemed to lack any meaningful context or development to either the characters or the story or to flesh out the world in a way. It's your typical go there and collect boar tusk for me but with slight variations. To me this is one of the most upsetting aspect of implementing side quests, if you dont have the context to back them up, dont do them in the first place.
After i tried few of them i decided to skip them and focus on the main plot because i wasn't having any fun being errand boy.

Later through the story, it starts to get interesting thankfully, it picks up the pacing and more characters gets introduced, more plot twists show and reveal itself, i liked the Mansion segment in particular, it felt like a love-letter to Resident Evil which i love.
Another section i loved was the wrecked ship.
I also felt sad for the technicians kids, their story was tragic.
After the turning point, i was more interested in the story and how to resolve it so i was having more fun, that all the way to the ending.

Characters are the best part of the game, i found Emil, Kaine, Grimore Weiss all to be good characters with some complex layers and meaningful development later on which is probably the most memorable part about the game. Weiss in particular is my favorite character in the game, his comments, the voice acting and how his traits are conveyed were all fantastic.

From the tutorial it was obvious that the combat itself was floaty and unsatisfying to execute, despite the flashy combos and the pretty colors, i never found myself having such a blast fighting shades, they all felt soulless and uninteresting to me, it's like hitting water, or cutting paper. This unfortunately continues through-out the whole game, because the game barely bothers to throw new enemies at you, you will fight more of the same enemies with few variations, the shades will change and some of them will have a shield and a weapon, some will be bigger and taller and some will be smaller and quicker, but that's it mostly.
You don't get much different weapons either its a choice between few weapons, spells and that's it.
Which is fine but not something very impressive, i found it weird because people dont bother to mention it while at the same it when it comes to other games you will never hear the end of it and its hyperbole.
Anyway i found the combat to be quite average. (which is fine, i dont put much emphasize on combat quality in rpgs)
Most of my time was button mashing on the spell from Wiess and a mix of jump attacks and light/strong attacks. Until i got bored of the same enemies over and over and decided to start parrying them to knock them off and finish them with a one shot critical hit.
If i felt the combat was more satisfying i would go for more fighting but to me the combat felt like an annoyance more than a fun thing to do so i decided to go the easiest most repetitive route.

Aside from that, i felt the open world to be needlessly big and empty, there was nothing interesting to explore or find there, it was just a vast land of empty spaces and few monsters scattered in between, the world also doesnt look good either, the art direction is subpar and graphics are below average, i understand its a remaster but visually the world didnt offer anything either.

Which brings me to one of the my most hated aspects of the game, The Level Design. it was awful, a sections of linear paths with no clues or interesting details, all look samey and they barely add anything to the experience, only making it dull and tedious. The underground sections are full of respawning robots that got very boring the first time, having lost my way through it, not because its complicated or anything, no but because it's a mess of lazy design, no level design clues or distinct features to vary the level and give it good layout. From the open world segments to the dungeons its extremely lazy and painfully dull.

Another very annoying aspect was the grind for materials to obtain new upgrades or to unlock lore. Like..Why? why would you lock lore behind a grindy tedious mechanics with extremely low drop rate, i dont get it, after i tried for few hours i eventually gave up and continue the game, because it was just not worth the time sink, i was able to defeat all the enemies with little effort using main weapons so this side activity felt nothing more than time waste and grind.

I enjoyed my time with it overall, but i dont want to go back to it, it's a one and done for me, i eventually watched the other endings on youtube because fuck doing them again, in Automata i did them because i enjoyed the game more, but here i wasn't ready for yet another playthrough.

It's not a bad game but i wouldn't say its good either. It does have very interesting setting and story but the setting is not properly explored and fleshed out.
And it has way too many flaws to account for unconditional praise it receives.


Summary:

+ Interesting setting.
+ Amazing Soundtrack.
+ Good story.
+ Great Characters.
- Dull/Bland Empty Open world.
- Terrible Level Design.
~ Average floaty Combat.
- Boring Enemies.
~ Pacing: Takes a while to pick up its story.
- Side Quests are awful.
- Subpar visuals.
- Upgrade system and Grind.

Pip-boy is dead. Now, I am Pip-Man.

My first playthrough of Fallout 3 was entirely mod-free, so I’ll be reviewing it through that lens. Strap on your Pip-Boys, grab your Todd Howard collectible bobble head, and follow me into the wasteland!

It is no overstatement to say that in 2008, Fallout 3 changed the course of the entire video games industry, rerouting seemingly every project in development that may have been a linear game into an open world adventure. Oblivion was great and all, but what Fallout 3 did with its open world was unprecedented, even in Grand Theft Auto III (often credited as the father of the genre). Followed by two other open world hits, Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim, this game proved that players didn’t need or necessarily even want direction in their video games. Go anywhere, do anything. It just works.

The game begins with a quick history of what happened to the world — in 2077, the Chinese dropped bombs on the US, we returned fire, blah blah blah world is ended in a nuclear holocaust. The world of Fallout isn’t our own, though; it’s a very different one in which the transistor was never invented, cars run on nuclear energy, and 50s Americana vibes dominate popular culture. Suddenly, you’re born! (Don’t feel too bad about being born. It happens to the best of us).

Your father, Liam Neeson, pulls you from your mother’s womb as you enter this exciting new world of nuclear mutants and wasteland horrors. Your mother dies in childbirth, and your Liam Neeson dad raises you in the safety of Vault 101, one of the few underground safe havens that protects from the creatures on the surface. Your best friend, Amata, is the daughter of the Overseer, the tyrannical leader of the vault. You go through some typical growing up stuff, from baby to prepubescent teen to a grown ass 19 year old. You see some glimpses of the trials and tribulations of growing up, choosing a career, and getting bullied. Tunnel Snakes rule! This whole section is quite interesting but only lasts an hour at most, so hold on to your hat and we’ll get you out into the open world in just a bit.

Like I said, in 2008 this was a literal game changer. Leaving the vault to chase after your missing father, you step out into the world for the first time and see the expanse of the Capital Wasteland. The visuals have not aged well, but a few mods will definitely make it more bearable. I won’t get too much farther into the story of Fallout 3, of which there isn’t much. I want to focus on the world. This game, much like Skyrim, is a sandbox for you to build your own post-apocalyptic story.

There isn’t much of an overarching objective beyond “Find your dad.” There’s one simple reason I still praise this game design to this day: “Find your dad” is exactly the right balance between urgent and trivial. Most open world RPGs, including most of Bethesda’s, suffer from creating a main objective that is so urgent that if you truly want to role play you can’t do any side quests. There isn’t time for exploring when the Dragon God is attacking villages or your son has been kidnapped by the Institute. But your dad, a seasoned wastelander and capable doctor, has wandered outside of his own volition. He’ll be fine on his own, but I still want to find him. But if I stop here and check out Paradise Falls… well, it’s not a big deal.

Fallout 3 features some of the most interesting quests in RPG history. I don’t want to spoil them, but look out for Tranquility Lane, The Mechanist vs. the Ant-Agonizer, Oasis, and Our Little Secret, among others. There are less quests than you might be used to in other open world games, but each quest is a lot more substantial than you’d anticipate, all of them with multiple branching paths and conclusions. Each quest comes to you pretty organically through conversation, environmental clues, or just overhearing something interesting at the local bar. Fallout 3 features a Karma system that disappears from later games, which works just as it sounds. Do something bad and you lose karma, do something good and gain karma. Karma is said to influence events around you and determine how some NPCs interact with you, so stop stealing stuff! Or don’t.

The music is amazing. Inon Zur is as purposeful as always, matching ambient soundscapes to the marching rhythms of war. The main theme is nothing short of iconic, and is still the main theme of the Fallout franchise today. Dun dunnnn dunnnnnnnnn

Although not as fleshed out as the characters in Fallout 4 or NV, Fallout 3 does feature some great characters to team up with. Among the companions, I stuck with Fawkes the super genius Supermutant and Dogmeat, my loyal mutt from the junkyard for the majority of the game. Other characters like Charon, king of the Ghouls, Sierra Petrovita, Curator of the First National Nuka Cola Museum, and the residents of the all-child city of Little Lamplight round out a cast of interesting people to meet. The dialogue is quite well written as well, and conversations are interesting and not something you’re skipping through to get to the “good stuff.” Conversations are, for the most part, the good stuff. Sierra was my first video game wife. Well, you can’t marry her, but we’re all just doing a make pretend here.

The gun play is bad. I don’t have a lot else to say. It’s clunky and it feels bad to shoot. There’s no way to reliably aim your gun in this game that is dependent on guns. VATS is essentially a lock-on system using AP (Action Points) and is the best way to ensure you’re doing any damage to enemies. You can also pick which body part to hit with your shots, and crippling specific body parts is the most strategic way to win fights. Cripple legs to immobilize enemies, or cripple arms to make them drop their weapons. Be aware there is weapon degradation ! But no crafting needed, stop by any merchant and pay them to repair your weapons and armor. I recommend a melee build, this game is a good bit easier with a Shishkebab. The shooting has aged terribly, but again that’s not the good part of the game. VATS is a clever holdover of the combat from the first two games, sitting somewhere between turn-based and live combat.

The settings are amazing. Oasis is my favorite, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. Just head north, you’ll get there. Paradise Falls, the slave city, is very neat for a city built entirely of junk. Little Lamplight is a town of all children and entirely subterranean. Seeing the 70 story Tenpenny Tower in the middle of the desert for the first time is a wonder I will never forget. Rivet City is a whole city build into a dilapidated aircraft carrier parked right on the river. Underworld is a secret city of ghouls trapped underground. Visit the proud Republic of Dave. And when you see the White House in shambles, the Washington monument crumbling… it makes you feel something (if you’re American). It’s all so dismal, wonderful, and hopeless at the same time.

And if you’re unfamiliar with Fallout, the monsters will blow your mind. Fallout has always had some of the best monsters in video games, so this isn’t surprisng, but some of them are legitimately scary while others are simply baffling. Supermutants and ghouls are all well and good, but let’s hang out with a centaur sometime. Whenever I look at it I remember how far we have strayed from God’s light.

More than anything, this game lets you explore. You can go far and wide, or stay on the short and narrow. Care about the story or don’t. It matters exactly as much as you want it to. Find the people, go to the places, shoot the stuff, don’t shoot the stuff, I don’t care. Just go. Any direction you please.

Fallout 3 is a wonderful and depressing trip into post apocalyptic America. Go literally anywhere and do literally anything you please. If that’s scary to you, the main quest will take you all over the map. But I encourage you to stick to the road less traveled- that is to say, don’t follow the roads. Fight for good or evil, for the Brotherhood or the Enclave, for justice or chaos. Just make sure to allow yourself to feel that freedom. They keep telling you that war never changes, but more importantly you’ll find that in some terrifying ways America never changes, either.

Honestly i dont see all the hate for this game here, sure its not the best Fallout game, its not even the second best Fallout game, but this game was far from terrible, even far from average.
The story as usual with Bethesda games is poor, but the world and the gameplay is a treat, the VATS mechanics was innovative and super fun to play with, the big weapons arsenal, the post apocalyptic atmospheric setting was horrifying. The exploration was fun and side quests while not on the same level as games like New Vegas or Witcher they were fun to play.
I also liked the expansions quite a bit, The Pitt offers good shades of grey storytelling, the Mothership offers funny humors action alien adventure, the Broken steel was bad in story but it gave the game more content and the point lockout was like a horror island mix with fallout gameplay.
Music is lackluster as well as interesting characters, except for Ghouls. Ghouls are cute.

Fallout 3 is a really good game, its fun to play and its memorable and innovative, I think it deserves more love here on this website.

4/5

play vtmb if you like:
- vampires
-immersive sims
-good writing
-mid 2000s emo/punk scene
-video games
-fun

flawed... masterpiece? maybe not quite that, but this is a mess of trashy iconoclasm, campy pastiche in the form of action rpg. "rough around the edges" barely says it, as the game is clearly unfinished and a bit rushed in the late game, and some of its most compelling aspects are left only mostly realized. this isn't necessarily a bad thing, however.

i played as a tremere - a vampire clan devoted to thaumaturgy. blood mages, essentially. frustratingly, the sanguine magicks afforded to you aren't really given the time to shine, with guns and bare fists being better suited to most encounters (and the open use of thaumaturgy being a risk to the masquerade). at least blood shield is useful throughout, and looks fucking cool... though of course any mortal who sees a human-shaped mass of blood will run screaming through the streets. with a few more sections enabling creative use of stealth and vampiric abilities, this playthrough could've been extremely satisfying. in fairness, that's only one of the seven clans, and each of them offers a distinct style of play, philosophy, dialogue, and in at least one case experience of reality. so there's quite a bit of depth here. and to be clear, i absolutely did have a great time with abilities like blood boil, which lifts an enemy struggling helplessly into the air before they explode into chunks and obliterate any other enemies within range. combining that with the ability to entrance solo opponents and drain their blood (their blood is your mana), several areas were exhilarating to storm through. i really want to go through the game again as a sneaky nosferatu hacker, a brawling brujah liberator, and perhaps once more as a malkavian weirdo. may or may not look into the unofficial plus patch for those, which mods in some cut content along with a handful of other liberties taken.

what's present and adequately fleshed out here is mostly very good. santa monica, downtown los angeles, and hollywood are all great (downtown being my favorite), while chinatown is a pretty major letdown on a few levels. worst of all, the pastiche descends into really gross racial caricature in a few instances (along with the presence of some really shitty dialogue choices). it's a stain on an otherwise very special and unique game, so i'm inclined to forgive it somewhat, but this stuff absolutely has to be called out. it does help that it's not all othering crassness: there's a gentle beauty and melancholy to the vibes - the sounds of wind chimes and mourning doves fill the air. there's a distinct feeling that you're haunting these spaces, a living apparition... and something about that is both cathartic and serene.

i did have a really good time navigating the politics of the plotting and power struggles between sects - namely, the corpo-fascist camarilla and the anarchic... anarchs. tremere are treated with mistrust, since their 'pyramid' social structure is a selfish and clandestine lot, and they're known to aid the camarilla in service of their own interests. being me, however, i wanted to lend my plasmatic sorcery to the anarchs. how am i not gonna pick the team smiling jack (voiced by jake the dog) is on?! that is my guy. this presented an interesting conundrum or two, and ultimately i felt i was able to carve out the path i wanted to. (also, this is kinda neither here nor there but i wanted to point out that there are some pretty decent mods available, like this skin i used for my vamp's appearance. i love how mean she looks.)

a minor spoiler: one of my favorite moments was when someone runs up to you, recognizing you from before your embrace, and you have a choice: let her call a friend to say you've been found and risk losing stature in the masquerade, or kill her. or...! find a solution that results in neither a loss of humanity nor a strike against the masquerade. what i did was admit to being her lost friend, and then before she could make the call, placed her in a trance and mind-wiped her, leaving her standing there in a daze. vampire life is cold. but it was the most merciful thing i could do.

not unlike morrowind, it took me a long time to find my way into this game after bouncing off it more than once. obviously, it has its issues. what really matters to me is, again, there's just nothing else quite like this. i sincerely hope to see bloodlines 2 one day emerge from development purgatory. i do hope, as well, that if it sees the light of day (rather, the moon) it's reflective of white wolf's nowadays more openly progressive stance on representation, while maintaining that distinctively ragged edge of sordid night life.

sound of head swooshing side-to-side
"What?"
bro growling
"A-Ahh! Th-The fuck man?!"
bro breaks down door
"A-Ahhh-- Ahh!!! AHHHH AHHH AHHHHHHH YAHHH"
slashing sound
"Oh god.............."
bro grunts
Fridays with Pewdiepie

A pioneer of the genre responsible for popularizing the first-person, combat-free approach of contemporary survival-horror commonly used by studios like Bloober Team and Red Barrels, that replaced the tank controls and ammo scavenging of yesteryear. It released to a fair amount of acclaim back in the day, and is still held in very high regard even now after all this time. For good reason too as it's genuinely a superb experience in most regards. However, after having finally played it for myself I must say it does have quite a few flaws that seem to go largely ignored or get glossed over whenever the game is talked about due to its reputation and influence.

It certainly has an exciting premise to start things off with. You wake up in a castle with no memory and a note from yourself that says you have in fact "chosen to forget," while instructing you to reach said castle's inner sanctum, find its baron, and kill him. Oh, and it also mentions something about being hunted by a malevolent "shadow" that will cast you into eternal darkness if you fail. So maybe no lollygagging, yeah?

The setting is by far Amnesia's greatest strength. The halls of "Brennenburg" are eerie and haunting with a solemn atmosphere. Plus it's architecture can be quite stunning. I've never been in a castle before so I can't say for sure how realistic its design is, but the layout and locations do begin to feel a little absurd after a while. It doesn't make the grounds any less memorable or a blast to explore though.

It isn't until about halfway through that the plotting picks up as the location's dark history begins to be revealed and encounters with enemies become a more regular occurrence. Up until that point you're mostly just solving puzzles. That isn't any sort of knock against the brainteasers at all as they're really clever in design and I appreciated how some of them required a lot of awareness in regards to what was around me in the environment so that I could use it in thoughtful ways, rather than just strictly tinkering around with various machines and doodads until I figured out how to make them work properly (although there was plenty of that as well). It's more a critique of the pacing as it takes a while for the notes you'll find to give the most interesting parts of the backstory and the terror is primarily reliant on audio cues early on, most of which are red herrings. For example, at one point I was tricked into being on alert in an area with no danger whatsoever by the sound of steps creaking footsteps on the wooden stairs I had just come from. No matter how many times I looked however there was never anything there. Ambient noise can be a very effective means of adding to the tension in a horror game so long as it is backed up by a legitimate threat. Here it doesn't take long to realize the few red flags you need to keep your ears open for and begin basically ignoring the majority of everything else you'll hear.

The monsters are shockingly the most disappointing aspect of the entire package. Not because they aren't freaky to look at (all two character models of them…), but rather due to them being almost pathetically easy to avoid. Without any means of self-defense you'll have to resort to stealth and hiding in order to survive. Should one of the disfigured humanoids catch sight of you, the idea is you'll run into an empty room and crouch with your face in a dark corner like you're dealing with the Blair Witch or something until it toddles off and despawns. In all honesty though you might just be better off letting it kill you as your foes don't seem to respawn when you do. The most egregious case I recall being during a scripted chase sequence where I got killed after hitting a dead end on a wrong turn and upon reloading the checkpoint I didn't have to deal with my pursuer again until after I passed the point I originally died at. There are still plenty of tense moments, but it's stuff like that which prevent it from being the pinnacle of stressful gaming it's often touted as in my eyes.

What keeps the moment-to-moment action engaging in spite of this is the unique sanity system. Sneaking around in the dark is obviously the best way to avoid drawing attention to yourself, but it takes a serious toll on your character's mental state. To keep from losing your head you have to spend time in the light, which not only puts you at risk of getting seen by the deadly entities searching for you, but also drains your precious reserves of tinderboxes and lantern oil. Running out of which can leave you seriously screwed. It adds an exciting risk/reward element to the mix.

Overall, it's easy to grasp why The Dark Descent was so inspirational. Yet, while many other titles have since perfected the core elements of its design with arguably more compelling ideas and effective scare tactics, it remains worthy of attention and praise. This twisted tale of the supernatural and the macabre may take a bit to get fully going, but once it does you'll find an intriguing, mature, and thoughtful nightmare deserving of its iconic status even if it's actual quality is slightly overstated in some areas, as it has managed to continue blowing a lot of its peers over the years out of the water regardless.

8/10

BioShock 2 is a fantastic sequel to the timeless masterpiece that is BioShock. Even though it doesn't offer the "wow" factor that the first game provided in terms of setting, atmosphere, and story; it manages to deliver another memorable experience that takes place once again in Rapture but after 10 years of the events of the first game.

Gameplay wise, there are several improvements including the ability to use weapons and plasmids at the same time, new hacking minigames, and the biggest and obvious change is being able to control subject Delta, one of the first Big Daddy prototypes. There are also new variances of enemies with the Big Sisters being the new main enemy throughout the course of the game. Rapture is even more decayed compared to the game which is expected considering the time of the events.

Story-wise, this game doesn't deliver on the same level as the first one but it does have plenty of audiobooks and references that provide more life to Rapture and the BioShock universe. Dr. Lamb (the new antagonist) brings a new ideological view and relies on her clinical psychiatrist background to create a cult following that wrecked havoc across Rapture.

All in all, BioShock 2 is a great follow-up to the first game and the perfect excuse to visit Rapture once again.

Parkour across buildings
Feels like sex
Grappling hook
Feels like cumming
But I bust no nuts
Only heads

This game is a disappointing mess at best and a complete failure at worst. I won't go into full detail as to why. But after i loved the first Bioshock and even the 2nd was decent with what followed to be some of the greatest expansions, Levine messed up big time with the 3rd title.
The writing is a pretentious mess and the story is all over the place, if it was more fast paced i would have declared it a trainwreck. Characterization the feels so lackluster and uninspiring gameplay which is the opposite of what the first Bioshock did.
Its a mess of a game, and one of the most overrated games ever made.

Bioshock Infinite hits all the right notes on an aura/aural level. Beautiful environments, a sweeping score, well-acted, etc... My love of the game pretty much ends there though. Shallow explorations of the game's key themes, and a monotonous gameplay loop kept me from ever really feeling satisfied. Gone is the horror-tinged elements of Rapture. Likewise the feeling of exploring a level, and finding some secrets within. Instead it's all replaced with combat arenas, and long corridors filled with spongey enemies.