NerdyMrSimms
2000
If you've played Timesplitters 2 or Future Perfect, those two void the need to play this game. Every single player level shares the same objective of getting an item at the end of the level and then backtracking through again with stronger enemies.
It's essentially the prototype of Timesplitters 2.
It's essentially the prototype of Timesplitters 2.
2002
Sure, parts of the game like the tank controls (though that never bothered me) and some of the boss battles being longer than they should aged the game, but it's no doubt still among the best in environmental storytelling. Easily one of my favorite games of all time.
2014
Subnautica is a pretty amazing survival game built into some of the foundations of System Shock's immersive sim mechanics. It has a hauntingly beautiful world filled with plenty of biomes along with the creatures and flora that inhibit it. The story unfolds in the Metroid Prime/System Shock logbook system and the game lets you play at your own pace, never needing to rush. You can build your base, tend your garden, upgrade your equipment, and brace yourself to go deep in the very hostile ocean world.
There are some annoyances with how it handles the survival mechanics though. Finding resources to craft your equipment can get a little too grindy, and I also feel that the thirst meter drains far too quickly, giving me the notion that no one dies of thirst far quicker than the player character. Granted, the game does give you options on how to balance it out if you are able to find the blueprints for it.
It had a pretty drawn out end game as well. Without giving too much away, you are required to build something that requires a lot of resources and backtracking, some of which I think was pretty dumb with how it was handled. Throughout the game I chose to not build the Cyclops submarine because I felt I was getting through the game just fine without it, and I felt it was too big for many of the passageways and caves I came across.
However, It turns out the sub is a necessity for the endgame, because it has its own fabricator that crafts one of the ingredients needed to build the final part to get you home.
Despite this, the annoyances aren't enough to bring down such an amazing world to experience and explore. Sometimes I wish I could forget some of the areas in the game just to experience the dread and anxiety of coming across them again. The uncertainty of whether or not you should push further and then succeeding in doing so is super satisfying.
It took me awhile to finish this game, and it's kind of bittersweet that I did. There aren't many games of this genre that capture the feelings I've experienced playing this game. I'm sad that I won't be able to experience them again now that I know what to expect playing this in the future.
There are some annoyances with how it handles the survival mechanics though. Finding resources to craft your equipment can get a little too grindy, and I also feel that the thirst meter drains far too quickly, giving me the notion that no one dies of thirst far quicker than the player character. Granted, the game does give you options on how to balance it out if you are able to find the blueprints for it.
It had a pretty drawn out end game as well. Without giving too much away, you are required to build something that requires a lot of resources and backtracking, some of which I think was pretty dumb with how it was handled. Throughout the game I chose to not build the Cyclops submarine because I felt I was getting through the game just fine without it, and I felt it was too big for many of the passageways and caves I came across.
However, It turns out the sub is a necessity for the endgame, because it has its own fabricator that crafts one of the ingredients needed to build the final part to get you home.
Despite this, the annoyances aren't enough to bring down such an amazing world to experience and explore. Sometimes I wish I could forget some of the areas in the game just to experience the dread and anxiety of coming across them again. The uncertainty of whether or not you should push further and then succeeding in doing so is super satisfying.
It took me awhile to finish this game, and it's kind of bittersweet that I did. There aren't many games of this genre that capture the feelings I've experienced playing this game. I'm sad that I won't be able to experience them again now that I know what to expect playing this in the future.
It's Serious Sam except the score matters. There are a couple of nuances that it doesn't take from the originals (such as firing one shot at the beheaded kamikaze doesn't stun it and the Reptiloid has more heath than the Croteam games) but it's pretty much the same game. It is ugly as sin to make it 60fps, which it accomplishes without any hitch.
Sam's one liners are among the best in the series in this game.
Sam's one liners are among the best in the series in this game.
The high point DLC of ME2. Great encounters, a decent if simple vehicle chase, and two fun boss fights. Really enjoyed the story.
My personal gripe though, I wish your squadmates had some screen time as well, would have been interesting hearing banter between former squadmates like Tali or Garrus with Liara, but like the rest of the ME2 DLCs, pretty much none of the other squadmates have any new lines aside from the ones giving you the mission.
My personal gripe though, I wish your squadmates had some screen time as well, would have been interesting hearing banter between former squadmates like Tali or Garrus with Liara, but like the rest of the ME2 DLCs, pretty much none of the other squadmates have any new lines aside from the ones giving you the mission.
"Mr. Francis York Morgan,
Should you know, this game is surreal.
This port, though, has a tarnished appeal.
"Such poor optimization!" one would declare.
Might I suggest that you should try it elsewhere?
So says, Mr. Stewart."
It's barely playable on PC, provided that you have a desktop setup with one graphics card. A lot of laptops that have an onboard graphics card as well as a dedicated card will not run this game.
If you are able to boot this game, it's inevitable that it will crash hard and frequently. The game has an immense charm that forgives its many, many issues, but unfortunately the PC version is unoptimized to a fault where it becomes frustrating to enjoy
Play this game on literally any other platform, it's an absolute treat.
Should you know, this game is surreal.
This port, though, has a tarnished appeal.
"Such poor optimization!" one would declare.
Might I suggest that you should try it elsewhere?
So says, Mr. Stewart."
It's barely playable on PC, provided that you have a desktop setup with one graphics card. A lot of laptops that have an onboard graphics card as well as a dedicated card will not run this game.
If you are able to boot this game, it's inevitable that it will crash hard and frequently. The game has an immense charm that forgives its many, many issues, but unfortunately the PC version is unoptimized to a fault where it becomes frustrating to enjoy
Play this game on literally any other platform, it's an absolute treat.
2019
The game is completely dependent on the group that you're playing with. If you have great working chemistry with your group, it's insanely good. However, it is extremely punishing upon death and if you have a bad connection to the Internet, it goes out of its way to not let you play.
As a single player game, the AI of your crew will make things hellish. If you have the patience to reset when things go south, you will get through this game alone. As it stands, the game is best played with a group that does not treat this like a school group project.
As a single player game, the AI of your crew will make things hellish. If you have the patience to reset when things go south, you will get through this game alone. As it stands, the game is best played with a group that does not treat this like a school group project.
2006
Neverwinter Nights 2 is a complicated animal compared to the original Neverwinter Nights game. At its core, it's the same game restomodded, but it carries with it some issues that hold it back from being better than the original.
Gameplay
NWN2 borrows a lot of gameplay elements from KOTOR where you can assume control of your companions and some conversations are letterboxed cutscenes. Inventory management is also similar to KOTOR, where the items no longer take up inventory space with unique sizes on a grid, and now all occupy one space in your inventory screen. The huge side effect to this inventory management is that you will have more trouble than necessary finding certain items that you'll need as a lot of the icons look identical.
Gone from the game is the radial system where you right click on an element and you're given a UI wheel to assign an action to your PC. In its place is a drop down menu that does the same, but removes some of the inputs to keep the menu from being cluttered. The designers ideally want you to use the hotbar more than the drop down menu, as they believed that right clicking on the enemy you want you to perform the action on, and then click on the ability in the hotbar to do that action on the enemy would be more intuitive than the radial menu from NWN.
However the hotbar is incredibly tedious to set up now that the radial menu is gone, and any special feats you want to perform must be dragged through from your characters' character sheet. I also haven't found a way to assign companion commands to the hotbar - which you could do in NWN - and those commands are an absolute necessity if you don't want your companions to aggro any enemies you don't want in a fight. The AI wants to engage in all enemies, even ones that will break your party formation.
Overall, gameplay is a downgrade from the original game.
Graphics and Sound
NWN2's engine essentially splashes the original NWN with a brand new coat of paint that looks good as screenshots but awful when in motion. All of the characters' animations feel extremely floaty, especially when attacking and moving. Not to mention that the women in the game walk as if they're always on a catwalk strutting. The spell's visual effects have taken a downgrade as well, and I was kind of disappointed with how it handled the electricity visuals on weapons. Blood also no longer spills on the ground and just floats in air like a plume of smoke.
The game has some new sound effects and music, but it also has pretty much all of the sound assets from the original NWN, and the game relies heavily on the older sounds. Voice acting in the game is a mixed bag. Thankfully, all of the companions have good VA and they don't suffer from the crushed dynamics some of the voices from Hordes of the Underdark had. Unfortunately, a bit of the NPCs aren't as lucky. Most of the bad VA come from monstrous NPCs who would benefit from having some reverb or other post processing, but they often suffer from crushed dynamics making them fatiguing to hear. The ones that speak very slow are often the ones that have the worst voice direction, but I don't think it's the fault of the VO artist.
Some of the NPCs in the NWN2 campaign even have the Asmir Male voice set, which if you've ever used the NWN Toolset, you'll know that is the default voice set assigned to any newly created NPC. It just so happens that the designers forgot to reassign another voice that would have made more sense to the NPC. There are a couple of other design oversights in the game that could take forever to fill this box of text up, but I digress.
Story
This is without a doubt the only thing that makes NWN2 better than NWN1 in spite of its problems. Pretty much all of the original Bioware modules in NWN had subpar stories save for Hordes of the Underdark. However, NWN2's story kept me engaged all throughout its long campaign, so much so that I even sat through a no word of lie a half hour conversation during a trial in the second act. Companions all have engaging side quests, and they feel very fleshed out as characters in the story whereas in the original campaign they're mostly used tools as a means to make the game more smoother to play. It's a testament of good writing if I'm able to stomach the bad animations and questionable game design choices just to see what happens next in the game.
Replayability
There are several paths you can take in the campaign and they all fit pretty well with the game's plot, surprisingly even the evil ones. Replayability in the first campaign will not be an issue if you're used to the gameplay jank. Unfortunately, because the only thing that carries the game is the campaign, NWN2 doesn't have the longevity of its older brother. Despite having its own toolset like NWN, it was reported that the toolset is more complicated to use compared to the original one, so users ended up going back to the old game for content creation. I cannot speak about the toolset as I have no recollection of ever using it, but by no means does that mean the game is void of user made content. Far from it, it has a sizeable amount of content that will garner more hours of your time if you let it, but it is nowhere near the sheer size of NWN1's content.
Final Thoughts
To put this long-winded rambling of a review short, Neverwinter Nights 2 is a great game mostly for its main campaign. Once you get used to its jankiness, the story of the campaign is among the best in the Dungeons and Dragons lore with compelling characters and decisions that may or may not bite you back in the end. If you're looking for an older RPG that feels okay to play despite its jankiness, you might want to just play NWN1 instead, as it already has loads of fan content that sometimes outshine its main campaign.
Gameplay
NWN2 borrows a lot of gameplay elements from KOTOR where you can assume control of your companions and some conversations are letterboxed cutscenes. Inventory management is also similar to KOTOR, where the items no longer take up inventory space with unique sizes on a grid, and now all occupy one space in your inventory screen. The huge side effect to this inventory management is that you will have more trouble than necessary finding certain items that you'll need as a lot of the icons look identical.
Gone from the game is the radial system where you right click on an element and you're given a UI wheel to assign an action to your PC. In its place is a drop down menu that does the same, but removes some of the inputs to keep the menu from being cluttered. The designers ideally want you to use the hotbar more than the drop down menu, as they believed that right clicking on the enemy you want you to perform the action on, and then click on the ability in the hotbar to do that action on the enemy would be more intuitive than the radial menu from NWN.
However the hotbar is incredibly tedious to set up now that the radial menu is gone, and any special feats you want to perform must be dragged through from your characters' character sheet. I also haven't found a way to assign companion commands to the hotbar - which you could do in NWN - and those commands are an absolute necessity if you don't want your companions to aggro any enemies you don't want in a fight. The AI wants to engage in all enemies, even ones that will break your party formation.
Overall, gameplay is a downgrade from the original game.
Graphics and Sound
NWN2's engine essentially splashes the original NWN with a brand new coat of paint that looks good as screenshots but awful when in motion. All of the characters' animations feel extremely floaty, especially when attacking and moving. Not to mention that the women in the game walk as if they're always on a catwalk strutting. The spell's visual effects have taken a downgrade as well, and I was kind of disappointed with how it handled the electricity visuals on weapons. Blood also no longer spills on the ground and just floats in air like a plume of smoke.
The game has some new sound effects and music, but it also has pretty much all of the sound assets from the original NWN, and the game relies heavily on the older sounds. Voice acting in the game is a mixed bag. Thankfully, all of the companions have good VA and they don't suffer from the crushed dynamics some of the voices from Hordes of the Underdark had. Unfortunately, a bit of the NPCs aren't as lucky. Most of the bad VA come from monstrous NPCs who would benefit from having some reverb or other post processing, but they often suffer from crushed dynamics making them fatiguing to hear. The ones that speak very slow are often the ones that have the worst voice direction, but I don't think it's the fault of the VO artist.
Some of the NPCs in the NWN2 campaign even have the Asmir Male voice set, which if you've ever used the NWN Toolset, you'll know that is the default voice set assigned to any newly created NPC. It just so happens that the designers forgot to reassign another voice that would have made more sense to the NPC. There are a couple of other design oversights in the game that could take forever to fill this box of text up, but I digress.
Story
This is without a doubt the only thing that makes NWN2 better than NWN1 in spite of its problems. Pretty much all of the original Bioware modules in NWN had subpar stories save for Hordes of the Underdark. However, NWN2's story kept me engaged all throughout its long campaign, so much so that I even sat through a no word of lie a half hour conversation during a trial in the second act. Companions all have engaging side quests, and they feel very fleshed out as characters in the story whereas in the original campaign they're mostly used tools as a means to make the game more smoother to play. It's a testament of good writing if I'm able to stomach the bad animations and questionable game design choices just to see what happens next in the game.
Replayability
There are several paths you can take in the campaign and they all fit pretty well with the game's plot, surprisingly even the evil ones. Replayability in the first campaign will not be an issue if you're used to the gameplay jank. Unfortunately, because the only thing that carries the game is the campaign, NWN2 doesn't have the longevity of its older brother. Despite having its own toolset like NWN, it was reported that the toolset is more complicated to use compared to the original one, so users ended up going back to the old game for content creation. I cannot speak about the toolset as I have no recollection of ever using it, but by no means does that mean the game is void of user made content. Far from it, it has a sizeable amount of content that will garner more hours of your time if you let it, but it is nowhere near the sheer size of NWN1's content.
Final Thoughts
To put this long-winded rambling of a review short, Neverwinter Nights 2 is a great game mostly for its main campaign. Once you get used to its jankiness, the story of the campaign is among the best in the Dungeons and Dragons lore with compelling characters and decisions that may or may not bite you back in the end. If you're looking for an older RPG that feels okay to play despite its jankiness, you might want to just play NWN1 instead, as it already has loads of fan content that sometimes outshine its main campaign.
2003
The magnum opus of racing games. Still to this day i havent experienced any new racing game that had the perfect balance of tight playability and adrenaline rush speed that this game has.
The only bad thing about this game is that its AI is extremely cheap on hard difficulties and the game's story mode. Some of the story mode chapters will not leave you any room for error so be at your most tenacious when playing.
The only bad thing about this game is that its AI is extremely cheap on hard difficulties and the game's story mode. Some of the story mode chapters will not leave you any room for error so be at your most tenacious when playing.
2021
Apart from the original music being somewhat unmemorable, Metroid Dread is a high point in the series. Everything from the controllability of Samus, the sound design, and the level design feels absolutely on point. It's also a welcome challenge as some of the bosses in the game are among the hardest in the Metroid series, though they are a bit forgivable since you will respawn outside of their rooms instead of at the last save spot. Definitely the most rewarding fights in the series.
The only real gripe I have is the EMMI zones start to lose their terrifying luster and end up being more of an inconvenience that you are forced to get through, especially late in the game. Regardless, everything else about this feels special, and for the short time I have experienced this game, it was one of the best experiences I've had.
The only real gripe I have is the EMMI zones start to lose their terrifying luster and end up being more of an inconvenience that you are forced to get through, especially late in the game. Regardless, everything else about this feels special, and for the short time I have experienced this game, it was one of the best experiences I've had.
Replayed after maybe 15 or so years after my rose colored nostalgia glasses fell off. Chapter one starts off strong. It's a fetch quest, but the villains involved are pretty awesome, and there are multiple ways to solve the issues and all feel like they work with the game's plot. However, once the chapter ends, it digresses into moments unrelated to the main plot. You have to take the main plot item somewhere across the desert, but you're interrupted twice, and those moments felt really padded out. They detract from the main story and almost felt like they were specifically designed only to add more to the game's length artificially. Also, the person that designed the Tomb of Kel-Garas in the interlude is a sadist.
Didn't really care for the final villain, or her motivations of why she did her plan. Deekin is still one of my favorite characters, though.
Didn't really care for the final villain, or her motivations of why she did her plan. Deekin is still one of my favorite characters, though.
Ending Mass Effect 2 to tie into the third game is this less than stellar DLC. Fights are made needlessly more difficult this time around because Shepard is on their own with no one on their team to help them out, All enemies now target you since none of your squad members are around, and your shields are ripped apart the moment you pop out from cover, making combat more tedious than fun in this mission. Pyros are a plenty in this mission and some will hide in corners and stagger you, leaving you vulnerable to gunfire while you're panicking over being on fire.
This dlc unfortunately has to be played because otherwise they make up a nonsensical reason why Shepard is impounded in the beginning of ME3. It's the weakest mission in storytelling because you commit a war crime to stop the reapers from coming for only a few months, despite some implications in this mission that you're given a few more years when doing so. So great, you've bought some time from a galaxywide genocide by committing batarian genocide. Wow, great outcome.
What a wasteful mission to end the game with.
This dlc unfortunately has to be played because otherwise they make up a nonsensical reason why Shepard is impounded in the beginning of ME3. It's the weakest mission in storytelling because you commit a war crime to stop the reapers from coming for only a few months, despite some implications in this mission that you're given a few more years when doing so. So great, you've bought some time from a galaxywide genocide by committing batarian genocide. Wow, great outcome.
What a wasteful mission to end the game with.
A pretty good third-person shooter, though the lack of checkpoints held it back from being really good. The story is pretty good with Willem Dafoe being the villain and owning it like the rest of his roles.
It's good enough that I'd consider this flick to be the real sendoff for Brosnan and not Die Another Day.
It's good enough that I'd consider this flick to be the real sendoff for Brosnan and not Die Another Day.
Probably the best version of THPS2. It has the first Pro Skater levels unlocked after you finish the main campaign. However, you'll breeze right through those bonus levels due to the high score goals unchanged from the original game. Manual filled combos which weren't present in PS1 will make short work of those goals.
The big drop penalty from PS2 is still present while playing the PS1 levels. Levels like Downhill Jam will be troublesome to play through because they are very height intensive and you'll bail no matter how high your landing stat is.
It also doesn't contain the soundtrack from PS1, but the Xbox had the feature to play music from ripped CDs, so you could theoretically create a PS1+PS2 soundtrack through those means.
The big drop penalty from PS2 is still present while playing the PS1 levels. Levels like Downhill Jam will be troublesome to play through because they are very height intensive and you'll bail no matter how high your landing stat is.
It also doesn't contain the soundtrack from PS1, but the Xbox had the feature to play music from ripped CDs, so you could theoretically create a PS1+PS2 soundtrack through those means.
2007
A technical marvel for the DS, but that's all it was. Very, very slow-paced and uninteresting.