JudgeDredd35
2023
An okay roguelite, twin stick shooter but there just isn't much systems here to keep me invested. The best thing this game has going for it is 1, its fast leveling system as your almost constantly leveling up and unlocking new abillities, perks and status effects for your weapons. The second is that the game went free to play on Steam, so you can add it to your library and try it out with no asking price.
Some of things that kept me from continuing to play was its bland visual design. The poster looks really cool and makes me think of films like Alien, but the graphics are pretty simplistic as well as its level design. You just feel like your moving around a large dark room with nothing interesting to see. I do like the flashlight in the game as you can, at any time, switch between a circle of light to see whats around you or a single vision cone that shines further out but narrows what you can see. Its a cool element that adds to the horror and tension, but it just kind of evaporates when all your fighting are giant insects. The game can also be very grindy when it comes to unlocking weapons as you start with a pistol and have to grind 50,000 credits for each new weapon unlock which just feels way too long and tedious to grind. And at the end of the day, the gameplay loop just boils down to a horde mode which I have just never found that fun to play. It is free though, so its always worth trying if your curious about it.
Some of things that kept me from continuing to play was its bland visual design. The poster looks really cool and makes me think of films like Alien, but the graphics are pretty simplistic as well as its level design. You just feel like your moving around a large dark room with nothing interesting to see. I do like the flashlight in the game as you can, at any time, switch between a circle of light to see whats around you or a single vision cone that shines further out but narrows what you can see. Its a cool element that adds to the horror and tension, but it just kind of evaporates when all your fighting are giant insects. The game can also be very grindy when it comes to unlocking weapons as you start with a pistol and have to grind 50,000 credits for each new weapon unlock which just feels way too long and tedious to grind. And at the end of the day, the gameplay loop just boils down to a horde mode which I have just never found that fun to play. It is free though, so its always worth trying if your curious about it.
2021
Playtime: 10 Hours
Score: 9/10
A nice surprise of a survival horror game! So I didn't know much about this game until I heard rumblings of it and then played the demo last year. And now I finally play it and I can confidently say, that its my new GOTY of 2021!
To start off with the visuals. The game reminded me a lot of the Resident Evil 1 remake in its lighting and visual design of the environments. The fact that the game takes place mostly in a mansion definitely adds to that and I quite enjoyed it. The only thing that isn't the best are the character models that look a little too uncanny valley, but it is a AA title so I'm not going to knock it too much. While the game makes you think it will be like Resident Evil it actually quickly turns more into Silent Hill as you unlock the later areas with blood soaked walls and an excessive amount of gore in the environment. You always just feel uneasy as you're moving through the rooms, like something is going to pop out at you and with the fixed camera angle, it adds to the uncertainty as you don't know what will be waiting for you in a room when you first enter it. While I tend to prefer the over the shoulder, third person or first person camera styles in horror games generally, I do admire how they used the fixed camera angles here and some of the angles they chose when in certain rooms added to that uneasy feel. Kind of like the bathroom scene at the beginning of Silent Hill 2.
The atmosphere has this oppressive feel as you feel trapped in this large mansion with no one to really help you. You will find plenty of dead bodies lying on the floor or on operating tables throughout the mansion/hospital as well as blood and guts in various corners. You can clearly see the bodies have been butchered and messed with, making you wander about who or what exactly did this. The game also features a couple of jump scares throughout the game and while I am usually not a fan of jump scares personally, but they were pretty well done here, happening when you least expect them. One of them in particular definitely gave me a jolt when it happened.
Next we have the music and sound design which is really well done overall. The OST has a lot of beautiful piano melodies while also having a lot of screeching intense tracks that really build up the games atmosphere and make you feel like you're in a hostile environment. The sounds the monsters make are disturbing and the loud moans they scream out when you kill them really sends a shiver down you're spine. The voice acting though isn't the best with their only being a few characters with dialogue, including your main character. While I would have preferred better voice acting, it added to the nostalgia a little as these types of games never had the best voice acting to begin with. The sound design overall is very well done.
Moving onto gameplay, it plays very much like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, with its gameplay loop of exploration, combat and puzzles. I enjoyed exploring the mansion with all of its nooks and cranny's, finding secret passages and plenty of things in the environment. The puzzles were enjoyable too with some pretty brain buster ones to solve. While it does get a bit much towards the end, I found the puzzles to be another great aspect of the game. The combat plays very much like I said before, akin to Resident Evil and Silent Hill in that you ready your weapons before attacking. The weapons you find feel very makeshift and unconventional because there are no traditional weapons lying around. You a get a nail gun in place of a pistol, a shotgun which is literally just some pipes duck taped together, an electric lance that can be used to shock enemies from close range and a good old fashioned crowbar. Unlike Silent Hill, you can't really get through the game with just the crowbar as most of the enemies are melee based in their attacks, and your character can only take a few hits before dying. The best strategy is to often shoot the enemies and when their down, hit them with your crowbar to finish them off. The weapons overall felt good to use, especially the shogun which has a nice punch to it whenever you fire. Your inventory is also thankfully unlimited and with clear categories of key items, resources and files. I also like how the map of the mansion is an actual physical map you have to select in your inventory and rotated around to read. While the map does mark some key items, I feel like it could have also marked things like ammo or health items you missed which is a QOL feature that many modern horror games use.
The enemy design is another thing I want to talk about before the story section. The enemies all look like Frankenstein like monsters with various blades and spikes stuck to their arms and bodies. At the same time their torsos and faces all look butchered and mangled like their barely holding together physically. While the various enemy types look samey after a while, towards the end they do introduce some new ones that look very different which I appreciated. Some enemy types feel redundant though like the wall enemies who have such giant blades for arms that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you shouldn't go passed them. Dealing with them is as simple as walking up next to them and just hitting them with you're crowbar until they die, and they can't fight back from that angle, so their inclusion in the game feels very pointless. About halfway through the game they introduce a stalker enemy. The design just looks really lame and I didn't find it intimidating at all. You do find out later the story reason, why the stalker enemy is there which I won't spoil, but overall it just felt redundant from a gameplay perspective. The best thing to do is when you enter a room and hear the stalker enemies theme is to just go out and come back in again, as they usually will disappear. It just a waste of resources fighting it.
Finally we can talk about the story. Caroline receives a weird photograph of two twin girls, addressed to her. She travels to the mansion from where it was sent only for her to be knocked out and then wakes up in a bath tub naked and hooked up to a machine. She must now find the missing girls and escape! As you explore the mansion you will find dairy entries and files from the family members that used to live in this mansion. The story they tell is very sad and disturbing and it adds context to much of what is going on. The notes are short and don't feel long winded to read, so I recommend reading all of them as it enhances the story overall. It gave me a lot of Silent Hill 3 vibes as you learn about a cult that controlled this family and their intentions that are evil in nature. Overall, I really loved the story as it took elements from many horror games but did its own thing with it. It makes me excited for the sequel they announced and how that game could play out.
In conclusion, I fully recommend this game to anyone who likes survival horror games and wants to play something new! As I said at the top of this review, its my new GOTY of 2021 beating out RE8!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
My GOTY for Every Year I have been alive - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/my-favorite-games-for-every-year-i-have-been-alive/
Score: 9/10
A nice surprise of a survival horror game! So I didn't know much about this game until I heard rumblings of it and then played the demo last year. And now I finally play it and I can confidently say, that its my new GOTY of 2021!
To start off with the visuals. The game reminded me a lot of the Resident Evil 1 remake in its lighting and visual design of the environments. The fact that the game takes place mostly in a mansion definitely adds to that and I quite enjoyed it. The only thing that isn't the best are the character models that look a little too uncanny valley, but it is a AA title so I'm not going to knock it too much. While the game makes you think it will be like Resident Evil it actually quickly turns more into Silent Hill as you unlock the later areas with blood soaked walls and an excessive amount of gore in the environment. You always just feel uneasy as you're moving through the rooms, like something is going to pop out at you and with the fixed camera angle, it adds to the uncertainty as you don't know what will be waiting for you in a room when you first enter it. While I tend to prefer the over the shoulder, third person or first person camera styles in horror games generally, I do admire how they used the fixed camera angles here and some of the angles they chose when in certain rooms added to that uneasy feel. Kind of like the bathroom scene at the beginning of Silent Hill 2.
The atmosphere has this oppressive feel as you feel trapped in this large mansion with no one to really help you. You will find plenty of dead bodies lying on the floor or on operating tables throughout the mansion/hospital as well as blood and guts in various corners. You can clearly see the bodies have been butchered and messed with, making you wander about who or what exactly did this. The game also features a couple of jump scares throughout the game and while I am usually not a fan of jump scares personally, but they were pretty well done here, happening when you least expect them. One of them in particular definitely gave me a jolt when it happened.
Next we have the music and sound design which is really well done overall. The OST has a lot of beautiful piano melodies while also having a lot of screeching intense tracks that really build up the games atmosphere and make you feel like you're in a hostile environment. The sounds the monsters make are disturbing and the loud moans they scream out when you kill them really sends a shiver down you're spine. The voice acting though isn't the best with their only being a few characters with dialogue, including your main character. While I would have preferred better voice acting, it added to the nostalgia a little as these types of games never had the best voice acting to begin with. The sound design overall is very well done.
Moving onto gameplay, it plays very much like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, with its gameplay loop of exploration, combat and puzzles. I enjoyed exploring the mansion with all of its nooks and cranny's, finding secret passages and plenty of things in the environment. The puzzles were enjoyable too with some pretty brain buster ones to solve. While it does get a bit much towards the end, I found the puzzles to be another great aspect of the game. The combat plays very much like I said before, akin to Resident Evil and Silent Hill in that you ready your weapons before attacking. The weapons you find feel very makeshift and unconventional because there are no traditional weapons lying around. You a get a nail gun in place of a pistol, a shotgun which is literally just some pipes duck taped together, an electric lance that can be used to shock enemies from close range and a good old fashioned crowbar. Unlike Silent Hill, you can't really get through the game with just the crowbar as most of the enemies are melee based in their attacks, and your character can only take a few hits before dying. The best strategy is to often shoot the enemies and when their down, hit them with your crowbar to finish them off. The weapons overall felt good to use, especially the shogun which has a nice punch to it whenever you fire. Your inventory is also thankfully unlimited and with clear categories of key items, resources and files. I also like how the map of the mansion is an actual physical map you have to select in your inventory and rotated around to read. While the map does mark some key items, I feel like it could have also marked things like ammo or health items you missed which is a QOL feature that many modern horror games use.
The enemy design is another thing I want to talk about before the story section. The enemies all look like Frankenstein like monsters with various blades and spikes stuck to their arms and bodies. At the same time their torsos and faces all look butchered and mangled like their barely holding together physically. While the various enemy types look samey after a while, towards the end they do introduce some new ones that look very different which I appreciated. Some enemy types feel redundant though like the wall enemies who have such giant blades for arms that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you shouldn't go passed them. Dealing with them is as simple as walking up next to them and just hitting them with you're crowbar until they die, and they can't fight back from that angle, so their inclusion in the game feels very pointless. About halfway through the game they introduce a stalker enemy. The design just looks really lame and I didn't find it intimidating at all. You do find out later the story reason, why the stalker enemy is there which I won't spoil, but overall it just felt redundant from a gameplay perspective. The best thing to do is when you enter a room and hear the stalker enemies theme is to just go out and come back in again, as they usually will disappear. It just a waste of resources fighting it.
Finally we can talk about the story. Caroline receives a weird photograph of two twin girls, addressed to her. She travels to the mansion from where it was sent only for her to be knocked out and then wakes up in a bath tub naked and hooked up to a machine. She must now find the missing girls and escape! As you explore the mansion you will find dairy entries and files from the family members that used to live in this mansion. The story they tell is very sad and disturbing and it adds context to much of what is going on. The notes are short and don't feel long winded to read, so I recommend reading all of them as it enhances the story overall. It gave me a lot of Silent Hill 3 vibes as you learn about a cult that controlled this family and their intentions that are evil in nature. Overall, I really loved the story as it took elements from many horror games but did its own thing with it. It makes me excited for the sequel they announced and how that game could play out.
In conclusion, I fully recommend this game to anyone who likes survival horror games and wants to play something new! As I said at the top of this review, its my new GOTY of 2021 beating out RE8!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
My GOTY for Every Year I have been alive - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/my-favorite-games-for-every-year-i-have-been-alive/
2016
Playtime: 8 Hours
Score: 8/10
An excellent stealth game that is great to play with a mate! I had heard of this game when it originally came out and I always wanted to play it, but I knew I wanted to play it with my best friend who loves games like Dishonored, as do I, so it would make for a great co-op game for us! And it really did as we ended up beating the whole thing in two sittings on the same day!
To start off, the most striking part about this game is its art style. Its a gorgeous game to look at with its Japanese inspired aesthetic. The way the colours pop and are so striking to look at it, its shame that theirs no photo mode, as me and my friend just wanted to take as many screenshots as we could! The cutscenes are also decently animated and more then what I was expecting from an indie title.
The gameplay is very much like Dishonored with a similar teleporting ability and other powers to what you would find in an Arkane game. Some of my favourites were the dagger throwing ability and one that allows you to blind opponents so you can sneak past or run up for a kill. The gameplay just felt very smooth overall for me. The levels are mostly linear but there a couple of more open areas which really let you explore and take out the army of guards in anyway you see fit. Not as large and explorable as a Arkane level, but close enough. And all of this just works perfectly in co-op!
The bosses are also a stand out. There are only a few of them with one reminding me of the Mr. Freeze boss fight from Batman: Arkham City in the best way possible! The final boss worked very well in terms of the story, but is a little simple as far as boss design goes.
As for the story, I was expecting something pretty basic going in, and what I got wasn't anything mind blowing but was still pretty solid and left me satisfied with the experience!
Overall, this is a solid stealth game and if you like games like Dishonored, you may like this one! And having the ability to play through the whole thing with a friend just is the icing on the cake!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 8/10
An excellent stealth game that is great to play with a mate! I had heard of this game when it originally came out and I always wanted to play it, but I knew I wanted to play it with my best friend who loves games like Dishonored, as do I, so it would make for a great co-op game for us! And it really did as we ended up beating the whole thing in two sittings on the same day!
To start off, the most striking part about this game is its art style. Its a gorgeous game to look at with its Japanese inspired aesthetic. The way the colours pop and are so striking to look at it, its shame that theirs no photo mode, as me and my friend just wanted to take as many screenshots as we could! The cutscenes are also decently animated and more then what I was expecting from an indie title.
The gameplay is very much like Dishonored with a similar teleporting ability and other powers to what you would find in an Arkane game. Some of my favourites were the dagger throwing ability and one that allows you to blind opponents so you can sneak past or run up for a kill. The gameplay just felt very smooth overall for me. The levels are mostly linear but there a couple of more open areas which really let you explore and take out the army of guards in anyway you see fit. Not as large and explorable as a Arkane level, but close enough. And all of this just works perfectly in co-op!
The bosses are also a stand out. There are only a few of them with one reminding me of the Mr. Freeze boss fight from Batman: Arkham City in the best way possible! The final boss worked very well in terms of the story, but is a little simple as far as boss design goes.
As for the story, I was expecting something pretty basic going in, and what I got wasn't anything mind blowing but was still pretty solid and left me satisfied with the experience!
Overall, this is a solid stealth game and if you like games like Dishonored, you may like this one! And having the ability to play through the whole thing with a friend just is the icing on the cake!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
2023
This review contains spoilers
Playtime: 25 Hours
Score: 6/10
A remake for one of my favorite games of all times unforunately disappoints me. So I had an interesting realization the other day. When I played and reviewed RE2 Remake, I was approaching it from the perspective of a new player who never played the original, so the remake was a "new game" for me. That is not the case with Resident Evil 4 as the original was my first Resident Evil game. I love the original and I have played through it probably a dozen times at this point. Because of those reasons, I found myself being a lot harsher and less impressed I guess you could say with this remake.
In terms of gameplay, its almost the same as the original. You will still be collecting gold from fallen enemies and chests to buy new guns and upgrade them. Its a satisfying loop which Capcom pretty much took from OG RE4 and applied it to RE8, which is why I loved that game so much. Enemies are a lot tougher this time around, taking multiple shots to kill, especially the Parasite enemies which thankfully the old flash grenade trick still works like a charm. They also take the fantastic gore system from the RE Engine and apply it here. It always felt satisfying for me using the Striker shotgun on the villagers, and just seeing their arms and limbs blow off when engaging them at close range. And even when you blast off a villagers arm, he will still come at you which was very cool.
My first complaint is the crafting system, more in the sense of its implementation. RE Engine games have had crafting ever since it debuted with RE7 which I like as its a nice system to have when your low on ammo, or if you have the resources, being able to craft a few extra handgun or shotgun ammo is always welcomed. This game however just implemented it in a way that was not fun for me. Basically your PRIMARY source of getting ammo in this game is through crafting. Enemies no longer drop ammo, which I get is more realistic but it makes it way less fun for me and smashing open crates can give you ammo sometimes but very little compared to the amount of enemies the game throws at you. The original game always supplied you with ammo with the occansional moment of you running out and having to search but this remake just took it to a level that was frustrating for me. I can see Capcom wanting to add more Survival in Survival Horror with this game, but thats just not what this game was meant to be imo. RE4 was always an Action Horror game which I think is a nice companion piece to the main survival horror sub-genre. I like being able to craft extra ammo as an option, but I still prefer finding ammo naturally in the enviorment. And while this went hand in hand with the previous games like RE7 and RE2R where you're mostly in cramped corridors with just enough enemies to keep you on your toes, this game has way too many enemies for the game to rely so much on ammo crafting. I just found myself running low on ammo constantly and while I got through by the skin of my teeth at times, I just didn't like it in this game.
The puzzles are alright but it felt like there was a lot more of them in this remake and some of them are just frustrating to deal with. The color insignia puzzle in the church comes back in this game but it honestly was more annoying to solve then in the original which I don't know how they managed to pull off. I started a new game plus run while I was on holiday but I stopped playing once I got to this puzzle as it just wasn't worth doing it again for me.
Boss fights are mostly the same with some minor changes. I do want to shoutout the Salazar boss fight which is WAY better in this game then the original! In this one he actually moves around the environment as you fight him and he is way tougher to beat, so thats one plus for this remake.
Music as well is alright. I immediately bought the soundtrack swap DLC just so I could have the original music, but the implementation of it in the main game was little stale. The merchant and save theme are still great but the overall vibe was just better in the original imo (I'm giving off real grumpy old man vibes in this review lol). It wasn't as good as RE2R which really made the experience better by even including the old PS1 SFXs when flipping through menus. Its also just bullshit that Capcom keeps making us pay for the original music in these remakes. Players SHOULD NOT have to pay for that and I'm not going to fall for it next time they do it.
Finally the story is where I was the most disappointed. It improves in some aspects but in others it just fell flat for me. To start with the voice cast/characters which I know caused a lot of debate online with fans. I think characters like Leon, Ashley, Salazar and Luis are the best. Saddler, Ada and Krauser are the least impressive. Ada wasn't as bad for me as everyone said she was, as her voice fits with this more cold and stoic version of Ada. I prefer the more flirty femfatale Ada of the original though. Krauser is alright but again I prefer the original and Saddler just loses all of his charisma and memorablilty with the bland writing they do for him. He's no longer the hammy action movie villain and more of just a generic cult leader who I was honestly bored by. They also cut down his role to visions that Leon has and you only meet him face to face in the last couple of hours of the game. Luis recieved the biggest upgrade of them all with his role in the story being greatly expanded upon. I loved the section in the mines where he accompanies you and helps in combat. I loved the bromance chemistry Leon and Luis had and it was sad when he died since they do such a great job building him up both in the cutscenes and the files you can find to learn his backstory. He gets killed by Krauser which I think works better then Saddler killing him and I like when Leon and Krauser are about to end their knife fight, Luis does get to shoot Krauser as payback and saves Leon. However, upgrading Luis's role meant they had to downgrade Ada's role as she has less screentime. I know there is the seperate ways DLC which I have not played yet, but this is a review of the base game, so thats what I am judging.
The overall writing is okay in this game, like I said they do a better job in some areas but a poor job in others. The story is played a lot more seriously which I get is so that it fits more inline with the more recent RE games, but I felt like it lost a lot of its charm and personality in the process. Leon and Ashely's relationship gets better towards the end of the game but in the beginning its very awkard which I get is realistic since they just met but we have gotten a lot of "older dude traveling through a dangerous enviorment with a kid" games since the original RE4 and I can think of many games that do it better then this remake. The Last of Us 1 and God of War 2018 as some examples. Here you can look forward to cringy dialogue like Leon saying to Ashley "I guess your used to running away from creeps.", and Ashley literally saying she doesn't know how to respond to that.
But anyway, all of my rants are now over lol This remake is alright but I just prefer the original a lot more. Like I said before, I was on holiday when I played through this game and once I beat it, I honestly just felt nothing and didn't even want to do a new game plus. I only started (but didn't finish) a new game plus run because I was bored and I had nothing else to play. That pretty much sums up my feelings.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
RE Engine Resident Evil Games Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/re-engine-resident-evil-games-ranked/
Score: 6/10
A remake for one of my favorite games of all times unforunately disappoints me. So I had an interesting realization the other day. When I played and reviewed RE2 Remake, I was approaching it from the perspective of a new player who never played the original, so the remake was a "new game" for me. That is not the case with Resident Evil 4 as the original was my first Resident Evil game. I love the original and I have played through it probably a dozen times at this point. Because of those reasons, I found myself being a lot harsher and less impressed I guess you could say with this remake.
In terms of gameplay, its almost the same as the original. You will still be collecting gold from fallen enemies and chests to buy new guns and upgrade them. Its a satisfying loop which Capcom pretty much took from OG RE4 and applied it to RE8, which is why I loved that game so much. Enemies are a lot tougher this time around, taking multiple shots to kill, especially the Parasite enemies which thankfully the old flash grenade trick still works like a charm. They also take the fantastic gore system from the RE Engine and apply it here. It always felt satisfying for me using the Striker shotgun on the villagers, and just seeing their arms and limbs blow off when engaging them at close range. And even when you blast off a villagers arm, he will still come at you which was very cool.
My first complaint is the crafting system, more in the sense of its implementation. RE Engine games have had crafting ever since it debuted with RE7 which I like as its a nice system to have when your low on ammo, or if you have the resources, being able to craft a few extra handgun or shotgun ammo is always welcomed. This game however just implemented it in a way that was not fun for me. Basically your PRIMARY source of getting ammo in this game is through crafting. Enemies no longer drop ammo, which I get is more realistic but it makes it way less fun for me and smashing open crates can give you ammo sometimes but very little compared to the amount of enemies the game throws at you. The original game always supplied you with ammo with the occansional moment of you running out and having to search but this remake just took it to a level that was frustrating for me. I can see Capcom wanting to add more Survival in Survival Horror with this game, but thats just not what this game was meant to be imo. RE4 was always an Action Horror game which I think is a nice companion piece to the main survival horror sub-genre. I like being able to craft extra ammo as an option, but I still prefer finding ammo naturally in the enviorment. And while this went hand in hand with the previous games like RE7 and RE2R where you're mostly in cramped corridors with just enough enemies to keep you on your toes, this game has way too many enemies for the game to rely so much on ammo crafting. I just found myself running low on ammo constantly and while I got through by the skin of my teeth at times, I just didn't like it in this game.
The puzzles are alright but it felt like there was a lot more of them in this remake and some of them are just frustrating to deal with. The color insignia puzzle in the church comes back in this game but it honestly was more annoying to solve then in the original which I don't know how they managed to pull off. I started a new game plus run while I was on holiday but I stopped playing once I got to this puzzle as it just wasn't worth doing it again for me.
Boss fights are mostly the same with some minor changes. I do want to shoutout the Salazar boss fight which is WAY better in this game then the original! In this one he actually moves around the environment as you fight him and he is way tougher to beat, so thats one plus for this remake.
Music as well is alright. I immediately bought the soundtrack swap DLC just so I could have the original music, but the implementation of it in the main game was little stale. The merchant and save theme are still great but the overall vibe was just better in the original imo (I'm giving off real grumpy old man vibes in this review lol). It wasn't as good as RE2R which really made the experience better by even including the old PS1 SFXs when flipping through menus. Its also just bullshit that Capcom keeps making us pay for the original music in these remakes. Players SHOULD NOT have to pay for that and I'm not going to fall for it next time they do it.
Finally the story is where I was the most disappointed. It improves in some aspects but in others it just fell flat for me. To start with the voice cast/characters which I know caused a lot of debate online with fans. I think characters like Leon, Ashley, Salazar and Luis are the best. Saddler, Ada and Krauser are the least impressive. Ada wasn't as bad for me as everyone said she was, as her voice fits with this more cold and stoic version of Ada. I prefer the more flirty femfatale Ada of the original though. Krauser is alright but again I prefer the original and Saddler just loses all of his charisma and memorablilty with the bland writing they do for him. He's no longer the hammy action movie villain and more of just a generic cult leader who I was honestly bored by. They also cut down his role to visions that Leon has and you only meet him face to face in the last couple of hours of the game. Luis recieved the biggest upgrade of them all with his role in the story being greatly expanded upon. I loved the section in the mines where he accompanies you and helps in combat. I loved the bromance chemistry Leon and Luis had and it was sad when he died since they do such a great job building him up both in the cutscenes and the files you can find to learn his backstory. He gets killed by Krauser which I think works better then Saddler killing him and I like when Leon and Krauser are about to end their knife fight, Luis does get to shoot Krauser as payback and saves Leon. However, upgrading Luis's role meant they had to downgrade Ada's role as she has less screentime. I know there is the seperate ways DLC which I have not played yet, but this is a review of the base game, so thats what I am judging.
The overall writing is okay in this game, like I said they do a better job in some areas but a poor job in others. The story is played a lot more seriously which I get is so that it fits more inline with the more recent RE games, but I felt like it lost a lot of its charm and personality in the process. Leon and Ashely's relationship gets better towards the end of the game but in the beginning its very awkard which I get is realistic since they just met but we have gotten a lot of "older dude traveling through a dangerous enviorment with a kid" games since the original RE4 and I can think of many games that do it better then this remake. The Last of Us 1 and God of War 2018 as some examples. Here you can look forward to cringy dialogue like Leon saying to Ashley "I guess your used to running away from creeps.", and Ashley literally saying she doesn't know how to respond to that.
But anyway, all of my rants are now over lol This remake is alright but I just prefer the original a lot more. Like I said before, I was on holiday when I played through this game and once I beat it, I honestly just felt nothing and didn't even want to do a new game plus. I only started (but didn't finish) a new game plus run because I was bored and I had nothing else to play. That pretty much sums up my feelings.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
RE Engine Resident Evil Games Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/re-engine-resident-evil-games-ranked/
Playtime: 20 Hours
Not for me sadly. I was interested in this game since it was well reviewed and I have enjoyed some CRPGs in the past like Wasteland 3, PoE and Divinity Original Sin. There were some things I did like, such as the quality of life features in terms of looting and inventory management and that you can freely switch between turn based and real time with pause combat. However the game just has a dull presentation for me. The prologue section makes you think there will be a lot of voice acting but there really isn't unless its main missions or you meeting your companions for the first time. Most of the time you have to read a lot of text which I don't usually mind in games, but a lot of the writing can feel very long winded and dull to read imo. The combat also is very party based where you have to buff your party before going into battle but most of your spells have a limited use per day, which I know is part of the tabletop version, but its just not fun for me in a video game setting. By no means is this a bad game and I wouldn't tell you to not buy it, it just depends if your a fan of tabletop games or your willing to get into the systems and rule set. Unfortunately it wasn't for me.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Not for me sadly. I was interested in this game since it was well reviewed and I have enjoyed some CRPGs in the past like Wasteland 3, PoE and Divinity Original Sin. There were some things I did like, such as the quality of life features in terms of looting and inventory management and that you can freely switch between turn based and real time with pause combat. However the game just has a dull presentation for me. The prologue section makes you think there will be a lot of voice acting but there really isn't unless its main missions or you meeting your companions for the first time. Most of the time you have to read a lot of text which I don't usually mind in games, but a lot of the writing can feel very long winded and dull to read imo. The combat also is very party based where you have to buff your party before going into battle but most of your spells have a limited use per day, which I know is part of the tabletop version, but its just not fun for me in a video game setting. By no means is this a bad game and I wouldn't tell you to not buy it, it just depends if your a fan of tabletop games or your willing to get into the systems and rule set. Unfortunately it wasn't for me.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
2022
Playtime: 12 Hours
Score: 8/10
Surprisingly good mobile card game! There have been many games that have tried to capture Hearthstone's success and few have really ever gotten it right but I'm a sucker for a good card game, as I grew up on Yu Gi Oh and Slay the Spire has become one of my new addictions. So what did I think of this one?
Gameplay wise this game uses a three column system, where you need to place down cards, and if you have the highest power score in two columns then you win. Its kind of like Witcher 3's Gwent, in that your building your strength in numbers, but you can only place up to 4 cards in each row, and each row has modifiers that can either work for or against you. Its very frantic to try and out power your opponent and there's a lot of strategy involved but you have to think quick as you are timed each round and there's only 6 rounds total. Each characters card also come with their own sets of abilities so you need to think how you want to build your small deck of only 12 cards. I found the gameplay to be fun and quick to learn but harder to master which will keep me busy for a long while!
Progression wise, you get currency to upgrade your cards, which allows unlock new cards through gameplay progression. Another cool thing is you can unlock variants for each characters card and those variants can be upgraded independently as well, so progressing a card you like never really runs out. Also as a little side note, I'm someone who reads and collect comics and each card uses comic art to display the character. If you click on an individual card, it will actually tell you the artists names, down to the pencilist and colorist, which I thought was a really nice touch!
In terms of monetisation, its mostly fair in that you can unlock a lot through just playing the game and not spending money.
Overall, a solid recommendation from me and since its now on Steam, its a nice way to play the game if your not a fan of playing on your phone.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 8/10
Surprisingly good mobile card game! There have been many games that have tried to capture Hearthstone's success and few have really ever gotten it right but I'm a sucker for a good card game, as I grew up on Yu Gi Oh and Slay the Spire has become one of my new addictions. So what did I think of this one?
Gameplay wise this game uses a three column system, where you need to place down cards, and if you have the highest power score in two columns then you win. Its kind of like Witcher 3's Gwent, in that your building your strength in numbers, but you can only place up to 4 cards in each row, and each row has modifiers that can either work for or against you. Its very frantic to try and out power your opponent and there's a lot of strategy involved but you have to think quick as you are timed each round and there's only 6 rounds total. Each characters card also come with their own sets of abilities so you need to think how you want to build your small deck of only 12 cards. I found the gameplay to be fun and quick to learn but harder to master which will keep me busy for a long while!
Progression wise, you get currency to upgrade your cards, which allows unlock new cards through gameplay progression. Another cool thing is you can unlock variants for each characters card and those variants can be upgraded independently as well, so progressing a card you like never really runs out. Also as a little side note, I'm someone who reads and collect comics and each card uses comic art to display the character. If you click on an individual card, it will actually tell you the artists names, down to the pencilist and colorist, which I thought was a really nice touch!
In terms of monetisation, its mostly fair in that you can unlock a lot through just playing the game and not spending money.
Overall, a solid recommendation from me and since its now on Steam, its a nice way to play the game if your not a fan of playing on your phone.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
2022
Playtime: 18 Hours
Score: 8/10
A really excellent game! Obsidian will always be my favorite game studio and this game reminds me why that is. I remember watching various podcast interviews with Josh Sawyer when this game came out and to see his passion for the game got me excited to play it. It is a very different type of RPG from Obsidian but it still has that charm and ultimately plays like a passion project. But what did I think overall?
The roleplaying mechanics are dialed back a bit from other Obsidian games but its still pretty effective here. You can pick things like where Andreas (the main characer) studied and what he studied. I picked Law and Occult studies, and it made for an interesting combination. Both skills came up quite often in conversation and were very handy when I was investigating leads. When talking to characters sometimes when you make dialogue choices the game will pop up a "This will be remembered" message like in a Telltale game, and this basically comes up later when trying to perusade someone, as it will list a bunch of options you picked before and whether or not that person agreed with you which leads to either a successful or unsuccessful persuasion. Simple but it gets the job done. Its funny how I was just reviewing and complaining about Starfield's skill checks being meaningless and yet this game does it so much better imo. Overall, I liked the roleplaying aspects of this game which is what I play RPGs for.
The comparisons to Disco Elysium are fair in some cases but a bit off base in others. It definitely has that similar detective vibe of you trying to solve a murder, but otherwise its quite different. DE has a lot more systems at play and the skill checks are based on dice rolls, where as this is just a simple you either have the skill or you don't system, which I ultimately prefer. I do wish there was a leveling system similar to DE's but otherwise theres not much to complain about.
The story overall I thought was very good and well told. The first two acts had me hooked as to who the killer was and I kept feeling like I was making the wrong decisions, but in a good way. There's plenty of choice and consequence here and I love to see that in RPGs. Act 3 did drop off a bit for me in terms of my interest in the story, as your not really solving a murder but rather learning the history of the town, which I didn't find as interesting. However it does pick up towards the end and I found the twist to be very unexpected. And I thought the story wraps up nicely by the end of the game.
Otherwise I don't have many complaints. The OST is very good but it only plays during certain key story moments and I would have liked it to be used more. Even just a simple town theme that would play when your running around the town would have been appreciated. But overall, I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes RPGs or history and with it being on game pass which is how I played it, its worth your time!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 8/10
A really excellent game! Obsidian will always be my favorite game studio and this game reminds me why that is. I remember watching various podcast interviews with Josh Sawyer when this game came out and to see his passion for the game got me excited to play it. It is a very different type of RPG from Obsidian but it still has that charm and ultimately plays like a passion project. But what did I think overall?
The roleplaying mechanics are dialed back a bit from other Obsidian games but its still pretty effective here. You can pick things like where Andreas (the main characer) studied and what he studied. I picked Law and Occult studies, and it made for an interesting combination. Both skills came up quite often in conversation and were very handy when I was investigating leads. When talking to characters sometimes when you make dialogue choices the game will pop up a "This will be remembered" message like in a Telltale game, and this basically comes up later when trying to perusade someone, as it will list a bunch of options you picked before and whether or not that person agreed with you which leads to either a successful or unsuccessful persuasion. Simple but it gets the job done. Its funny how I was just reviewing and complaining about Starfield's skill checks being meaningless and yet this game does it so much better imo. Overall, I liked the roleplaying aspects of this game which is what I play RPGs for.
The comparisons to Disco Elysium are fair in some cases but a bit off base in others. It definitely has that similar detective vibe of you trying to solve a murder, but otherwise its quite different. DE has a lot more systems at play and the skill checks are based on dice rolls, where as this is just a simple you either have the skill or you don't system, which I ultimately prefer. I do wish there was a leveling system similar to DE's but otherwise theres not much to complain about.
The story overall I thought was very good and well told. The first two acts had me hooked as to who the killer was and I kept feeling like I was making the wrong decisions, but in a good way. There's plenty of choice and consequence here and I love to see that in RPGs. Act 3 did drop off a bit for me in terms of my interest in the story, as your not really solving a murder but rather learning the history of the town, which I didn't find as interesting. However it does pick up towards the end and I found the twist to be very unexpected. And I thought the story wraps up nicely by the end of the game.
Otherwise I don't have many complaints. The OST is very good but it only plays during certain key story moments and I would have liked it to be used more. Even just a simple town theme that would play when your running around the town would have been appreciated. But overall, I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes RPGs or history and with it being on game pass which is how I played it, its worth your time!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
2023
Playtime: 75 Hours.
Score: 6/10
A bit of a let down for me honestly. There wasn't a single game coming out this year that had me more hyped then this one. My first RPG was Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion which is what got me into the genre, and I have loved Bethesda's games ever since then. Plus there my favorite dev team ever aside from Obsidian so I was keen to see what they would do with a new IP. I will prefice this by saying, that this is by no means is a bad game but it just fell short of my expectations, and because I love Bethesda Game Studios so much, I'm going to be giving them a lot of tough love in this review. I have a lot to say and this will be long one so strap in spacers!
Firstly lets talk performance as I know thats a big talking point about this game. I was worried going in to Starfield that my PC wouldn't be able to run it with a lack of Nvidia support (at release) and that I have a low to mid range PC. I have a Nvidia 1660 Super GPU, 32GB of Ram and 2TB SSD storage (I'm not very well versed in pc specs talk). I played it on gamepass and it ran pretty well for me. I constantly switched between medium and high settings and the framerate was solid. On high, my framerate was fine except when I was in cities like New Atlantis or Neon it would dip a little. I ended up just settling on medium since I'd take better performance over graphics any day. Load times were super fast too and I was impressed with the QOL improvments to reduce load times like being able to fast travel to a location straight from the quest log as an example.
The first major improvement is the leveling system in Starfield. On the service, it is basically the perks system from Fallout 4 but its much improved in that you have to complete challenges in each skill before you can advance to the next rank. The other big thing is your build is SO IMPORTANT in this game and you can't be a jack of all trades unless you dump hundreds of hours into this game which is a first in a while for Bethesda since Morrowind and Oblivion. They tend to love the power fantasy approach but in this game every skill point you invest matters and being locked out of things like jetpacks unless you have the skill was chefs kiss for me. You really have to have a build in mind going in and focus on specifc things. As an example I mostly focused on ballistic weapons in combat as trying to do that and energy weapons would have spread my skill points way too thin so I had to pick one style and stick with it. Another thing is, once you go past Lvl 30, things do slow down pretty significantly in terms of you level up so its important you get the basic necessity skills before then.
Roleplaying is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I do love that they went back to the dialogue system of Oblivion and Fallout 3, where the camera zooms in on an NPC and you have your list of dialogue options. I'm also grateful they didn't go with a voice protagonist (even though they apparently tried) as it makes your choices in dialogue so much deeper where as it was very limited in Fallout 4. You do get skill checks but this is an area I was really disappointed by. 99% of the time for me, picking skill check options doesn't do anything to change a quest or what an NPC thinks of you. It really just felt like an extra dialogue option for you to select and nothing beyond that. Only a few times did it actually effect a coversation in a meaningful way. You do get some choice and consequence but only a few had me really stop and think before choosing. In some ways its an improvement over past games and in others it feels very under developed.
Combat is good for the most part. The shooting is slightly improved from Fallout 4 but I never had an issue with it since I care more about the RPG experience. You do have a lot more verticality with the jet packs in combat which I liked. My only issue is some of the enemies can be real damage sponges and they just soak up bullets no matter what difficulty you play on. Stealth gameplay is absolutely atrocious as it seemed like no matter how many points I put into the skill, enemy placement just had them always spot or hear me and I was forced into combat. The most you can do is pick off a few enemies from afar with a sniper rifle but thats about it. A big step down from Fallout and Elder Scrolls for sure. Ship combat was the most interesting for me. In the beginning it sucks because you don't have any good skills, but as you get better ships and crew members who can boost your ships weapons and shields, its a lot of fun! You get a targeting system thats basically like VATS where you can target specific parts of enemy ships. Being able to take out a ships engines and then boarding it to then steal said ship was always satisfying for me!
Oh and theres also powers which basically act as this games version of shouts from Skyrim. There okay, but the process of getting them is super boring. In Skyrim you would be exploring a dungeon, fighting your way through draugurs and traps before finally getting to the shout as epic chanting played. But wait, you need a dragon soul, so go have an epic battle with one to absorb its soul and learn the words of the shout! In Starfield, you land on a planet, follow your scanner finding a bunch of boring anomalies, until you finally get to a temple. Awesome dungeon ahead? Nah, just go into a low gravity room and fly through some floating light bulbs so a ring in the center can spin fast enough for you to get a power. You do this exact same process EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!
Next exploration, which is the one key ingredient to any Bethesda game as they do open world so well and give you so many cool things to find. How is it in Starfield? It reminded me of two games, in that it's a worse version of both of them being Mass Effect 1 and Oblivion. Its ME1 in the sense that your exploring baren, uninteresting planets with a couple of locations to find. The difference is ME1 had vehicles to make it less tedious which this game SORELY needs. And its Oblivion in the sense that a lot of the dungeons are copy and pasted. The difference there is that: Oblivion came out in 2006, Bethesda was a lot smaller at the time and they had only one dev to make all the dungeons, and even then they felt more interesting to explore then this. They really needed to narrow the scope of this game way down. If they maybe did 200 planets instead of a 1000, I think it would have been better. Yes, there would still be procedural generation, but it would feel way less repetitive. The best way to explore is to simply follow the quests as they will lead you to the interesting locations. The cities like New Atlantis, Neon and Akila are cool to explore, but It doesn't make up for the rest of the lackluster exploration IMO.
Some more miscelanious stuff to talk about before companions and story. The music by Inon Zur is fantastic as he captures the wander in exploring the stars but also have some emotional tunes as well. Digipicking is a cool mini game and I like the concept but the issue is that the RNG can really screws you over, as there are times where they simply don't give you enough correct combinations to fit into the required slots. Also you can pick a master lock in this game and get nothing but random junk with no cool weapon or piece of armor guranteed to be inside. YAY! The persuasion mini game is okay, but it also seems very chance based and I honestly prefered the one in Oblivion as it was easier to get the hang of. I didn't do any outpost or ship building, since I hated doing it in Fallout 4, so I just ignored it. I do appreciate that Bethesda didn't force it on you like in Fallout 4 and that you can just play the game like a traditional RPG. Though whenever you buy a house (as opposed to building an outpost) theres no furniture inside and your forced to build and place everything inside yourself. I hated this and would have just prefered a simple buy furniture option like in older games.
Second last, lets talk companions. I was disappointed when I heard that you only have 4 full fledged companions in this game as that is just way too low for an RPG. I think 6 companions would have been the sweet spot and added a little more variety that this game really lacks in. The companions aren't bad but there not great either for me. Sarah Morgan is by far the most interesting with her back story and romance. Only issue is she's a bit of a girl scout with a very black and white view on the world. So if your doing a morally grey quest or making choices with more nuiance to them, SARAH DISLIKED THAT! Barret was by far the most charismatic as he's basically the Han Solo of your crew. I smiled and laughed the whole way through a lot of his quests. Andreja is basically the outsider of the group with a questionable past. I don't think she's a bad companion she's just not really that memorable for me. And Sam is just there. The only real interesting part about him was his daughter, Cora, who accompanies you whenever Sam's on your ship. There banter back and forth was very cute, though get ready to hear the same "buy me a book dad!" lines over and over again. "Over 200k lines of dialogue" my ass.
Finally the main story just fell completely flat for me. It had one really emotional moment for me half way through that presents a hard decision for you to make, which I was honestly shocked Bethesda went that far with it and I appreciate that they did. But beyond that its just really dull as you just collect artifact after artifact. And once the reveal came about the mystery around the artifacts I honestly just rolled my eyes and was like "Really? Were doing this now?!". Just really generic stuff man. The overall writing for the game I wouldn't say is bad, but its not great either. There were certain faction questlines that presented hard choices but I don't feel they went far enough with them. There's has just been so many great RPGs that have come out since Fallout 4 (I'm not counting Fallout 76) that have way better writing and this surface level storytelling Bethesda typically goes for just doesn't cut it for me anymore.
I guess my final verdict is to try this on gamepass, see what you think and then decide whether or not you want buy it. I probably would have preordered it if I had the money to do so, but in hindsight I'm glad I went with the cheaper gamepass option instead though I will eventually get the game on Steam once its heavily discounted. On a postive note, leading up to Starfield's release I had grown pretty sour on Fallout 4 and its many problems, but after playing Starfield I downloaded Fallout 4 to replay it and I had a blast. It definitely made me appreciate Fallout 4 a lot more so there's that.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Bethesda Game Studios Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/bethesda-game-studios-ranked/
Score: 6/10
A bit of a let down for me honestly. There wasn't a single game coming out this year that had me more hyped then this one. My first RPG was Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion which is what got me into the genre, and I have loved Bethesda's games ever since then. Plus there my favorite dev team ever aside from Obsidian so I was keen to see what they would do with a new IP. I will prefice this by saying, that this is by no means is a bad game but it just fell short of my expectations, and because I love Bethesda Game Studios so much, I'm going to be giving them a lot of tough love in this review. I have a lot to say and this will be long one so strap in spacers!
Firstly lets talk performance as I know thats a big talking point about this game. I was worried going in to Starfield that my PC wouldn't be able to run it with a lack of Nvidia support (at release) and that I have a low to mid range PC. I have a Nvidia 1660 Super GPU, 32GB of Ram and 2TB SSD storage (I'm not very well versed in pc specs talk). I played it on gamepass and it ran pretty well for me. I constantly switched between medium and high settings and the framerate was solid. On high, my framerate was fine except when I was in cities like New Atlantis or Neon it would dip a little. I ended up just settling on medium since I'd take better performance over graphics any day. Load times were super fast too and I was impressed with the QOL improvments to reduce load times like being able to fast travel to a location straight from the quest log as an example.
The first major improvement is the leveling system in Starfield. On the service, it is basically the perks system from Fallout 4 but its much improved in that you have to complete challenges in each skill before you can advance to the next rank. The other big thing is your build is SO IMPORTANT in this game and you can't be a jack of all trades unless you dump hundreds of hours into this game which is a first in a while for Bethesda since Morrowind and Oblivion. They tend to love the power fantasy approach but in this game every skill point you invest matters and being locked out of things like jetpacks unless you have the skill was chefs kiss for me. You really have to have a build in mind going in and focus on specifc things. As an example I mostly focused on ballistic weapons in combat as trying to do that and energy weapons would have spread my skill points way too thin so I had to pick one style and stick with it. Another thing is, once you go past Lvl 30, things do slow down pretty significantly in terms of you level up so its important you get the basic necessity skills before then.
Roleplaying is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I do love that they went back to the dialogue system of Oblivion and Fallout 3, where the camera zooms in on an NPC and you have your list of dialogue options. I'm also grateful they didn't go with a voice protagonist (even though they apparently tried) as it makes your choices in dialogue so much deeper where as it was very limited in Fallout 4. You do get skill checks but this is an area I was really disappointed by. 99% of the time for me, picking skill check options doesn't do anything to change a quest or what an NPC thinks of you. It really just felt like an extra dialogue option for you to select and nothing beyond that. Only a few times did it actually effect a coversation in a meaningful way. You do get some choice and consequence but only a few had me really stop and think before choosing. In some ways its an improvement over past games and in others it feels very under developed.
Combat is good for the most part. The shooting is slightly improved from Fallout 4 but I never had an issue with it since I care more about the RPG experience. You do have a lot more verticality with the jet packs in combat which I liked. My only issue is some of the enemies can be real damage sponges and they just soak up bullets no matter what difficulty you play on. Stealth gameplay is absolutely atrocious as it seemed like no matter how many points I put into the skill, enemy placement just had them always spot or hear me and I was forced into combat. The most you can do is pick off a few enemies from afar with a sniper rifle but thats about it. A big step down from Fallout and Elder Scrolls for sure. Ship combat was the most interesting for me. In the beginning it sucks because you don't have any good skills, but as you get better ships and crew members who can boost your ships weapons and shields, its a lot of fun! You get a targeting system thats basically like VATS where you can target specific parts of enemy ships. Being able to take out a ships engines and then boarding it to then steal said ship was always satisfying for me!
Oh and theres also powers which basically act as this games version of shouts from Skyrim. There okay, but the process of getting them is super boring. In Skyrim you would be exploring a dungeon, fighting your way through draugurs and traps before finally getting to the shout as epic chanting played. But wait, you need a dragon soul, so go have an epic battle with one to absorb its soul and learn the words of the shout! In Starfield, you land on a planet, follow your scanner finding a bunch of boring anomalies, until you finally get to a temple. Awesome dungeon ahead? Nah, just go into a low gravity room and fly through some floating light bulbs so a ring in the center can spin fast enough for you to get a power. You do this exact same process EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!
Next exploration, which is the one key ingredient to any Bethesda game as they do open world so well and give you so many cool things to find. How is it in Starfield? It reminded me of two games, in that it's a worse version of both of them being Mass Effect 1 and Oblivion. Its ME1 in the sense that your exploring baren, uninteresting planets with a couple of locations to find. The difference is ME1 had vehicles to make it less tedious which this game SORELY needs. And its Oblivion in the sense that a lot of the dungeons are copy and pasted. The difference there is that: Oblivion came out in 2006, Bethesda was a lot smaller at the time and they had only one dev to make all the dungeons, and even then they felt more interesting to explore then this. They really needed to narrow the scope of this game way down. If they maybe did 200 planets instead of a 1000, I think it would have been better. Yes, there would still be procedural generation, but it would feel way less repetitive. The best way to explore is to simply follow the quests as they will lead you to the interesting locations. The cities like New Atlantis, Neon and Akila are cool to explore, but It doesn't make up for the rest of the lackluster exploration IMO.
Some more miscelanious stuff to talk about before companions and story. The music by Inon Zur is fantastic as he captures the wander in exploring the stars but also have some emotional tunes as well. Digipicking is a cool mini game and I like the concept but the issue is that the RNG can really screws you over, as there are times where they simply don't give you enough correct combinations to fit into the required slots. Also you can pick a master lock in this game and get nothing but random junk with no cool weapon or piece of armor guranteed to be inside. YAY! The persuasion mini game is okay, but it also seems very chance based and I honestly prefered the one in Oblivion as it was easier to get the hang of. I didn't do any outpost or ship building, since I hated doing it in Fallout 4, so I just ignored it. I do appreciate that Bethesda didn't force it on you like in Fallout 4 and that you can just play the game like a traditional RPG. Though whenever you buy a house (as opposed to building an outpost) theres no furniture inside and your forced to build and place everything inside yourself. I hated this and would have just prefered a simple buy furniture option like in older games.
Second last, lets talk companions. I was disappointed when I heard that you only have 4 full fledged companions in this game as that is just way too low for an RPG. I think 6 companions would have been the sweet spot and added a little more variety that this game really lacks in. The companions aren't bad but there not great either for me. Sarah Morgan is by far the most interesting with her back story and romance. Only issue is she's a bit of a girl scout with a very black and white view on the world. So if your doing a morally grey quest or making choices with more nuiance to them, SARAH DISLIKED THAT! Barret was by far the most charismatic as he's basically the Han Solo of your crew. I smiled and laughed the whole way through a lot of his quests. Andreja is basically the outsider of the group with a questionable past. I don't think she's a bad companion she's just not really that memorable for me. And Sam is just there. The only real interesting part about him was his daughter, Cora, who accompanies you whenever Sam's on your ship. There banter back and forth was very cute, though get ready to hear the same "buy me a book dad!" lines over and over again. "Over 200k lines of dialogue" my ass.
Finally the main story just fell completely flat for me. It had one really emotional moment for me half way through that presents a hard decision for you to make, which I was honestly shocked Bethesda went that far with it and I appreciate that they did. But beyond that its just really dull as you just collect artifact after artifact. And once the reveal came about the mystery around the artifacts I honestly just rolled my eyes and was like "Really? Were doing this now?!". Just really generic stuff man. The overall writing for the game I wouldn't say is bad, but its not great either. There were certain faction questlines that presented hard choices but I don't feel they went far enough with them. There's has just been so many great RPGs that have come out since Fallout 4 (I'm not counting Fallout 76) that have way better writing and this surface level storytelling Bethesda typically goes for just doesn't cut it for me anymore.
I guess my final verdict is to try this on gamepass, see what you think and then decide whether or not you want buy it. I probably would have preordered it if I had the money to do so, but in hindsight I'm glad I went with the cheaper gamepass option instead though I will eventually get the game on Steam once its heavily discounted. On a postive note, leading up to Starfield's release I had grown pretty sour on Fallout 4 and its many problems, but after playing Starfield I downloaded Fallout 4 to replay it and I had a blast. It definitely made me appreciate Fallout 4 a lot more so there's that.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Bethesda Game Studios Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/bethesda-game-studios-ranked/
2023
Fun little Demake of the original game! I remember seeing a video on YouTube (thats still up today) of a RE1 style Dead Space demake with fixed camera angles and the RE1 gameplay style and I just thought it looked so cool. This one is a little different though. Its basically part of the first chapter, in a retro graphical style. You still have the over the shoulder gameplay and it can be fun to see the Ishimura in PS1 era graphics. Beyond that though, theres not much else here. But its free so its fun to play if you have 30 minutes to kill.
2023
Playtime: 11 Hours
Score: 8/10
A fantastic return to form for the series! I started this series pretty late last year with The Dark Descent, and I ending up really loving that game! It made me appreciate Frictional Games as a developer as they made a hide and seek horror game (which I normally hate) fun for me! The series has been in limbo for a while, as A Machine for Pigs had a good story but got reduced to a walking sim in terms of its gameplay. Rebirth tried to go back to Dark Descent's gameplay, but it failed at it imo with a bland story and setting. However, The Bunker not only brings the series back but also evolves it in many ways. So what did I think?
The first immediate change is the fact that you get guns and can actually defend yourself against the monster. Ammo is pretty limited, but it felt empowering to be able to fend off the monster if I ever got into a tight spot. The game plays a lot more like a mix of the classic Resident Evil games and Alien: Isolation, as you can explore this old WW1 bunker and you have limited inventory space which you can upgrade. They also include an item box but it has limited space so I only stored away key items if I didn't immediately need them. What I like most about the gameplay is just how many tools the game gives you to solve puzzles or access certain areas and there are multiple ways to approach situations. It just invites you to experiment and see what works which was cool.
A mechanic that reminded me of Darkwood, is where you need to fuel a generator in order to keep the lights on in the bunker. At first I hated this mechanic but I grew to appreciate it as it really made the atmosphere tense as the creature won't appear as frequently when the lights are on, but once they go off, all bets are off. The creature reacts to sound, and almost everything you do makes a hell of a racket thanks to the games excellent sound design, so it made exploring feel rewarding but also scary. Things like having to blow open a door to find a map and some supplies can feel good but at the same time daunting because you know the creature will be right on its way to eat you. The creature does lose its luster after a while and becomes a bit of a nuisance but when your in its lair and hiding in a cupboard and its right outside searching for you, it can be terrifying (speaking from experience).
Only thing I wasn't too hot on was the games story. While Frictional have made some great stories with games like Soma and tried with Rebirth (never going to like that game), here it goes back to the storytelling of Dark Descent, where a lot of it is told through notes. The notes are interesting to read and they fill in the blanks of what happened in this bunker before you arrived, but theres not much to the main plot. Its basically just your stuck in this bunker with a monster and your trying to get out. And even with the other games in the series, you had both compelling lore and an interesting main plot. This game fails a little in that department.
Overall though, I loved this game and it's a high recommend to anyone who loves Survival Horror games, especially the classic ones!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Frictional Games Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/frictional-games-ranked-/
Score: 8/10
A fantastic return to form for the series! I started this series pretty late last year with The Dark Descent, and I ending up really loving that game! It made me appreciate Frictional Games as a developer as they made a hide and seek horror game (which I normally hate) fun for me! The series has been in limbo for a while, as A Machine for Pigs had a good story but got reduced to a walking sim in terms of its gameplay. Rebirth tried to go back to Dark Descent's gameplay, but it failed at it imo with a bland story and setting. However, The Bunker not only brings the series back but also evolves it in many ways. So what did I think?
The first immediate change is the fact that you get guns and can actually defend yourself against the monster. Ammo is pretty limited, but it felt empowering to be able to fend off the monster if I ever got into a tight spot. The game plays a lot more like a mix of the classic Resident Evil games and Alien: Isolation, as you can explore this old WW1 bunker and you have limited inventory space which you can upgrade. They also include an item box but it has limited space so I only stored away key items if I didn't immediately need them. What I like most about the gameplay is just how many tools the game gives you to solve puzzles or access certain areas and there are multiple ways to approach situations. It just invites you to experiment and see what works which was cool.
A mechanic that reminded me of Darkwood, is where you need to fuel a generator in order to keep the lights on in the bunker. At first I hated this mechanic but I grew to appreciate it as it really made the atmosphere tense as the creature won't appear as frequently when the lights are on, but once they go off, all bets are off. The creature reacts to sound, and almost everything you do makes a hell of a racket thanks to the games excellent sound design, so it made exploring feel rewarding but also scary. Things like having to blow open a door to find a map and some supplies can feel good but at the same time daunting because you know the creature will be right on its way to eat you. The creature does lose its luster after a while and becomes a bit of a nuisance but when your in its lair and hiding in a cupboard and its right outside searching for you, it can be terrifying (speaking from experience).
Only thing I wasn't too hot on was the games story. While Frictional have made some great stories with games like Soma and tried with Rebirth (never going to like that game), here it goes back to the storytelling of Dark Descent, where a lot of it is told through notes. The notes are interesting to read and they fill in the blanks of what happened in this bunker before you arrived, but theres not much to the main plot. Its basically just your stuck in this bunker with a monster and your trying to get out. And even with the other games in the series, you had both compelling lore and an interesting main plot. This game fails a little in that department.
Overall though, I loved this game and it's a high recommend to anyone who loves Survival Horror games, especially the classic ones!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Frictional Games Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/frictional-games-ranked-/
2016
Playtime: 4 hours
Score: 6/10
Always wanted to play this one and it's currently on Gamepass so I finally played it and it was a little disappointing to be honest. I liked the main characters of Henry and Deliah as there chemistry felt very believable and the voice acting was top notch. The story sets up a weird mystery which had me intrigued as to what was going on. The reveal though just felt really underwhelming to me. It made sense in the context of the story, but I was expecting something a lot more interesting.
Gameplay wise, its a walking sim with some light immersive sim elements. It played fine but I found navigating the map to be a bit annoying at times. The game is also really beautiul in terms of its lighting and enviroments.
Overall, if your interested in this game then I'd say play this on Gamepass. I couldn't really recommend buying it since its so short, and it will depend on whether you like the twist or not. I didn't.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 6/10
Always wanted to play this one and it's currently on Gamepass so I finally played it and it was a little disappointing to be honest. I liked the main characters of Henry and Deliah as there chemistry felt very believable and the voice acting was top notch. The story sets up a weird mystery which had me intrigued as to what was going on. The reveal though just felt really underwhelming to me. It made sense in the context of the story, but I was expecting something a lot more interesting.
Gameplay wise, its a walking sim with some light immersive sim elements. It played fine but I found navigating the map to be a bit annoying at times. The game is also really beautiul in terms of its lighting and enviroments.
Overall, if your interested in this game then I'd say play this on Gamepass. I couldn't really recommend buying it since its so short, and it will depend on whether you like the twist or not. I didn't.
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
2022
Playtime: 9 Hours (Across 1 and a half playthroughs)
Score: 8/10
What an experience! So this game always looked interesting to me, being heavily inspired by the works of H.R. Giger who I'm a huge fan of his work on the Alien franchise, so this game seemed right up my alley. So I finally checked it out on Gamepass (while I wait for Starfield) and I have a lot to say.
The main selling point of this game is the art style with its very organic and sci fi like imagery. The places you explore just look drop dead gorgerous and its definitely a game where I stopped to take in the scenery from time to time. This extends to the enemies you fight which all look nightmarish in their design and to the weapons you use which all have an organic design to them. It feels like a truly lived in and fallen civilization and I love it. The music and sound design also a do a great job for the games atmosphere. The game itself isn't very scary per say but its definitely got a mood and vibe to it. It can appear very blurry at first so I recommend turning off motion blur (which I always do in games) and turn up the sharpness to make the look very crisp.
Gameplay is broken up into puzzle solving, exploration and combat. The puzzles I thought were quite fun and clever. While some I was able to solve on my own, others requires a lot more brain power in how to solve it. Exploration can be cool mainly for the games art design as I mentioned previously. You don't get any direction at the beginning but after a while you learn that its pretty much you interacting with consoles to open doors, operate heavy machinery or solve puzzles. And they clearly label what consoles you can interact with now or later, so finding your way around is pretty seemless. I also love how the game has no HUD expect for when you aim your weapon, which allowed me to get immersed more easily.
Then we get to combat which I'm a bit mixed on. While the weapons themselves are very cool looking and fun to use (except for the tool gun) the balancing of combat isn't always the best. In the beginning you just have the tool gun which shoots out a phallic like object that you need to use to insert (oh yes you heard me) into consoles to open doors. In combat you can hit enemies with it and if you hit the glory hole (I'm full of puns today), you can do a quick take down animation. This is all fine on paper but the the tool gun can only fire once or twice before it needs to recharge to which you are open to attacks from the enemy and you are very weak and can die easily. The strategy I used was hit the enemies a couple of times then run away while it recharges, but even this became ineffective because the games loves to throw groups of enemies at you. The other guns are more effective but are slow firing and your ammo supply is pretty limited in this game. In the end I just ended up installing mods that increased how many shots I got with the tool gun and increased the overall ammo supply to make the games combat more bareable. This wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things when I learned the enemy patterns and came up with strategy's to beat them but in the beginning it was very frustrating.
As for the story, its a lot easier to follow then what I was expecting, but it does lack a lot of context as to what's going on. You get a basic idea about how your character got into this mess, but thats about it and the stuff that happens to you on your journey is simple enough to interpret up until the ending, which is a bit more confusing but I have an idea in my head about what it meant. There are no audio daries, dialogue exhanges or notes to pick up, so the only real storytelling the game has is envorimental which I can appreciate and I like games that don't spoon feed you answers.
As for performance, the game ran very smooth for me and I never had too many issues aside from frame drops that lasted a second before going back to 60fps, so all good there. I had heard this game was very buggy, but I personally only ran into one bug where I was walking down a corridor and a cut scene was suppose to trigger but it didn't and my character was frozen in place. I was able to fix this by reloading my checkpoint and I was able to trigger the cut scene with no issue. I didn't mind the saving system, but I do recommend checking your save files playtime to see if it has advanced whenever you solve a puzzle, pick up an item etc..as the game doesn't really tell you when it saves.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game and its a nice short survival horror game to play through. I do recommend watching reviews and if you have gamepass, maybe play it that way as I don't think this game will be for everyone. But as for me I got everything I wanted out of it!!
All Games Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 8/10
What an experience! So this game always looked interesting to me, being heavily inspired by the works of H.R. Giger who I'm a huge fan of his work on the Alien franchise, so this game seemed right up my alley. So I finally checked it out on Gamepass (while I wait for Starfield) and I have a lot to say.
The main selling point of this game is the art style with its very organic and sci fi like imagery. The places you explore just look drop dead gorgerous and its definitely a game where I stopped to take in the scenery from time to time. This extends to the enemies you fight which all look nightmarish in their design and to the weapons you use which all have an organic design to them. It feels like a truly lived in and fallen civilization and I love it. The music and sound design also a do a great job for the games atmosphere. The game itself isn't very scary per say but its definitely got a mood and vibe to it. It can appear very blurry at first so I recommend turning off motion blur (which I always do in games) and turn up the sharpness to make the look very crisp.
Gameplay is broken up into puzzle solving, exploration and combat. The puzzles I thought were quite fun and clever. While some I was able to solve on my own, others requires a lot more brain power in how to solve it. Exploration can be cool mainly for the games art design as I mentioned previously. You don't get any direction at the beginning but after a while you learn that its pretty much you interacting with consoles to open doors, operate heavy machinery or solve puzzles. And they clearly label what consoles you can interact with now or later, so finding your way around is pretty seemless. I also love how the game has no HUD expect for when you aim your weapon, which allowed me to get immersed more easily.
Then we get to combat which I'm a bit mixed on. While the weapons themselves are very cool looking and fun to use (except for the tool gun) the balancing of combat isn't always the best. In the beginning you just have the tool gun which shoots out a phallic like object that you need to use to insert (oh yes you heard me) into consoles to open doors. In combat you can hit enemies with it and if you hit the glory hole (I'm full of puns today), you can do a quick take down animation. This is all fine on paper but the the tool gun can only fire once or twice before it needs to recharge to which you are open to attacks from the enemy and you are very weak and can die easily. The strategy I used was hit the enemies a couple of times then run away while it recharges, but even this became ineffective because the games loves to throw groups of enemies at you. The other guns are more effective but are slow firing and your ammo supply is pretty limited in this game. In the end I just ended up installing mods that increased how many shots I got with the tool gun and increased the overall ammo supply to make the games combat more bareable. This wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things when I learned the enemy patterns and came up with strategy's to beat them but in the beginning it was very frustrating.
As for the story, its a lot easier to follow then what I was expecting, but it does lack a lot of context as to what's going on. You get a basic idea about how your character got into this mess, but thats about it and the stuff that happens to you on your journey is simple enough to interpret up until the ending, which is a bit more confusing but I have an idea in my head about what it meant. There are no audio daries, dialogue exhanges or notes to pick up, so the only real storytelling the game has is envorimental which I can appreciate and I like games that don't spoon feed you answers.
As for performance, the game ran very smooth for me and I never had too many issues aside from frame drops that lasted a second before going back to 60fps, so all good there. I had heard this game was very buggy, but I personally only ran into one bug where I was walking down a corridor and a cut scene was suppose to trigger but it didn't and my character was frozen in place. I was able to fix this by reloading my checkpoint and I was able to trigger the cut scene with no issue. I didn't mind the saving system, but I do recommend checking your save files playtime to see if it has advanced whenever you solve a puzzle, pick up an item etc..as the game doesn't really tell you when it saves.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game and its a nice short survival horror game to play through. I do recommend watching reviews and if you have gamepass, maybe play it that way as I don't think this game will be for everyone. But as for me I got everything I wanted out of it!!
All Games Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
2021
Tried this on game pass and didn't like it. I've been a fan of Arkane with games like Prey and Dishonored, and despite mixed reviews I wanted to at least try out this game. The enemy AI is completely brain dead as you could kill someone right next to them but as long as its not in eyesight, they won't react. The levels are very linear and its just very boring to navigate. I'm glad I didn't buy this game.
2021
This review contains spoilers
Playtime: 45 Hours
Score: 9/10
A great end to the Mass Effect trilogy! So I only ever played the first few hours of this game back in the day but never finished it, so most of this was a first time playthrough for me. I had kept hearing how divisive it was which put me off from ever playing it until the Definitive Ediition came out and I knew I had to right the wrong and finish this trilogy.
In terms of the story its rock solid with great dialogue and some really powerful moments. The only part I was mixed on was the Citadel DLC but I jhave already reviewed that seperately. The way people talked about the writing and how much they didn't like it, I assumed it was going to be like Game of Thrones Season 8, where characters would be dying left and right for no reason, because the writers wanted to rush through everything, but no it was all handled very well IMO. Based on my playthrough Mordan, Thane and Legion died (which I cried my eyes out too), but it was them sacrifcing themselves for the greater good and thats a good character death in my book. None of my companions died in the final battle and while it sucks Shepard dies in most of the endings, I feel like its a fitting end to the story and it brings the trilogy to a good close. I also chose the Snythesis ending and it felt just right for all the choices I had made throughout the trilogy.
The artstyle is I guess is mix of Mass Effect 1 and 2 with a gritty but also shiner look if that makes any sense. My only real complaint is my custom Shepard that I had been played the first 2 games with, looked really bad in this new artstyle. I tried to tweak them but in the end I just went with default Shepard who looked way better in the new artstyle.
Gameplay wise, this is the best feeling game of the original 3 with some great shooting and cover mechanics, though it can be a bit wonky trying to get out of cover because my Shepard often would just run in between cover rather then breaking out of it which was annoying. Also the weapon switching was a little janky, as often times I would pull up the weapon wheel and select a weapon but Shepard wouldn't switch to it and I would have repeat the process again. That got old very quick and I never had that issue when playing the first 2 games.
Overall though, theres not much left to say other then this is a great end to the trilogy and I'm glad I finally finished it.
All Games Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
Score: 9/10
A great end to the Mass Effect trilogy! So I only ever played the first few hours of this game back in the day but never finished it, so most of this was a first time playthrough for me. I had kept hearing how divisive it was which put me off from ever playing it until the Definitive Ediition came out and I knew I had to right the wrong and finish this trilogy.
In terms of the story its rock solid with great dialogue and some really powerful moments. The only part I was mixed on was the Citadel DLC but I jhave already reviewed that seperately. The way people talked about the writing and how much they didn't like it, I assumed it was going to be like Game of Thrones Season 8, where characters would be dying left and right for no reason, because the writers wanted to rush through everything, but no it was all handled very well IMO. Based on my playthrough Mordan, Thane and Legion died (which I cried my eyes out too), but it was them sacrifcing themselves for the greater good and thats a good character death in my book. None of my companions died in the final battle and while it sucks Shepard dies in most of the endings, I feel like its a fitting end to the story and it brings the trilogy to a good close. I also chose the Snythesis ending and it felt just right for all the choices I had made throughout the trilogy.
The artstyle is I guess is mix of Mass Effect 1 and 2 with a gritty but also shiner look if that makes any sense. My only real complaint is my custom Shepard that I had been played the first 2 games with, looked really bad in this new artstyle. I tried to tweak them but in the end I just went with default Shepard who looked way better in the new artstyle.
Gameplay wise, this is the best feeling game of the original 3 with some great shooting and cover mechanics, though it can be a bit wonky trying to get out of cover because my Shepard often would just run in between cover rather then breaking out of it which was annoying. Also the weapon switching was a little janky, as often times I would pull up the weapon wheel and select a weapon but Shepard wouldn't switch to it and I would have repeat the process again. That got old very quick and I never had that issue when playing the first 2 games.
Overall though, theres not much left to say other then this is a great end to the trilogy and I'm glad I finally finished it.
All Games Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
A solid expansion. I loved the first episode which was on a miltary base and felt very much like Quake 2 but after that it goes back to the gothic design of the base game. I found the levels to be a bit more interesting overall. The weapons are fun too like the laser rifle and freaking Thor's hammer! The OST also was a lot better and had some really good tracks I was bobbing my head too. Overall, a solid campaign.
All DLC I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-dlcs-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
All DLC I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-dlcs-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/