All spice and no flavor

I was randomly looking for something to play and came across this and since it is free to play I thought I give it a shot

When I saw the trailer I like most people instantly thought of Local 58 (https://www.youtube.com/c/local58tv) an analog horror series centered around a news channel

But unfortunately, I was severely disappointed, a few complaints I have are

No voice acting- I legitimately was falling asleep within the first 10 minutes because there was nothing to hold my attention, I understand it is free to play so you're not recouping anything on it to pay VAs but there is a little voice acting in the videos you collect so I'm not sure why we couldn't have our main characters speak

Not much to do/repetitive gameplay- If you want all the endings/achievements you will be cycling through the same text and choices over and over again with no chapter select or skip text feature

There's also not much to do in terms of actual gameplay, you'll click on some objects and get flavor text and through the course of 3 acts you may have anywhere from 5-15 options in terms of conversations and choices

Not scary- Nothing truly scary happens throughout the game, it may suggest something is going on but you never actually see what happens

There are no jumpscares, no monsters/entities and even the "unsettling" video glitches do nothing after the 3rd time seeing them and that's what stinks.

In my personal opinion there still hasn't been a game that captured the creepiness or uneasy feeling that series like Local 58 or Gemini Home Entertainment presented which could be my basis on why I rated the game so poorly

As I've gotten older, my disdain for this game has grown, and why I like and dislike the game has changed over time. to the point that this will most likely ever be the last time I play this game

I give a lot of credit to this game as it sets the standard for the rest of the series to come and I think this is the most Tony Hawk game it can only be matched to THUG1

The three things that I don't think will ever change
1. The selection of skaters
2. The soundtrack
3. The ((idea)) of the "pro challenges""

I don't have much to say about point one and point two
but I do wanna touch on the pro challenges

Now I'm not engrained in skate culture so I cannot attest to how accurate or significant the challenges were to the respected pro, but the game does advertise the pro challenge as something that is a highlight in that skater's career and then you get to watch a corresponding short video related to that challenge

Some of these were 1 to 1 accurate (Hawk/Burnquist/Mullins)

But then you have someone like Elissa Steamer's pro challenge on Alcatraz which is "Elissa's Super Gaps" which has her clearing gaps while doing corresponding tricks and what's the accompanying video?

3-4 minutes of mostly flat-ground flip trick to grind
And Ollie off of the ledge onto flat ground nothing I'd consider a "super gap"

Another pro challenge I wanna mention is Kareem Campbell's "Roof Gap" challenge which mentions him being the first person to kickflip the Gonz Gap

The accompanying video is half grind tricks and the other half is just different clips of him hitting his signature trick the "ghetto bird"

In a game that is created by actual people who put every rail half and quarter pipe into the game, you couldn't recreate the Gonz gap? hell the video that you unlock doesn't even include this moment

Now I understand that inherently it is a video game so if you made every "pro challenge" be oh just do these tricks until you're done that wouldn't be fun"

But if these challenges are supposed to be moments from each skater's career then they should at least relate a little to it

There are 190 goals in the game but I'd cut at least a quarter to half of them out, just like old THPS games each of the 9 levels (two of which you have to buy) all include two get-the-combo letters, one get-the-skate letters, three score challenges (high/pro/sick)

They will also include one or two comps you have to medal and every level has one or two pro challenges tied to it

I could probably write a review of just the quality of the goals but they range from butt-butt easy to mind-numbing controller eviscerating

The further you get in the game the lengths you need to go in just trying to reach a goal or hit the hitbox gets more and more irritating but they added cheats for a reason

I think if you can get past the annoying parts and you haven't played this game before then i'd say go for it as you will most likely have a decent time

However if you thinking about replaying this game I'd say don't unless you're gonna use the cheats as there's really nothing to come back to at this point when you have games like THUG1 or even THPS 1+2 Remake/Remaster

I was not a fan of this game, I don't remember much of the first one but between the terrible acting of 90% of the characters and not much in terms of "gameplay" this is an easy "watch a let's play" of a game

I couldn't figure out what to do at the very beginning of the game so I spent the majority of time discovering practically all the clues that were locked due to gameplay and sequence breaking about 50% of the game

None of the scares were really scary and I thought they could have done more with just practical scares I.E messing with the screen more or having more typing sequences and having it put scary messages rather than what you were typing

I will probably go back and clean up the other 11 achievements thanks to the guide by Hexwyn on steam

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2682555182

Mid Point and click game at best, and problematic point-and-click at its worst. For a game that kinda takes clear jabs at the leaning right conservatives a lot of the jokes that it relies on are considered crass or in bad taste.

A lot of dialogue for no real payoff though this is a 3 part game so I can see that the first part is more so laying the foundation for the main plot. 35 steam achievements all of which I got in just under 3 hours

Maybe if you can find it on sale it's worth picking up at least the first episode to see if it's something you can vibe with I did chuckle a few times at some of the dialogue from mel

I just wish there was something else to break up all the dialogue because some sections can run more than 2 minutes of nonstop talking.

I will commend the game on design aspects character models, sound, and animation are all pretty good for the time of release.

You can take or leave that none of the characters have any design similarities amongst each other, everyone has different facial features which could be a pro as that just like in real life not many people look like one another or a con in that there's nothing to tie everyone design wise together

The best way i can describe this game is "a game that most people like/love that you/I don't" One of the worst games i have played in my opinion but I can understand why there's a fanbase and two sequels and a spin-off for the series

Very early on I found the story very confusing and lore dumping as they give a lot of the foundation to the story very early and all at once, to the point where I was so lost in what was going on that I just decided to skip I'd say about half the cutscenes just to finish the game

I found all the enemies and especially the boss designs interesting and unique which is probably my only positive takeaway

This game was not meant for me to play and I understand that I'm part of a very small minority in saying that

But lackluster graphics, a convoluted drag of a story, and finally a combo system while nice in principal due to the faster load times of a PC rather than a PS3 or 360 you're unable to practice them while loading

What I expected when I bought this game was a more streamlined experience rather than a simulator esq game. The comparison to Doki Doki when reading the reviews was not lost on me but I think Needy Streamer was trying to sell itself on the shock value rather than the actual game experience

Doki doki slowly subverted expectations throughout the game rather than throwing it in your face all at once (barring being spoiled on the twist of DDLC)

NSO gets right to the get-go and shows that our main character is already cracked out and we just are fuel to the flame. The issue imo with both games is that there's no happy medium.

DDLC at some points is too streamlined with little room for player choice, while on the flipside NSO is too focused on player choice and number crunching to see what stats you raising and lowering

I saw maybe a quarter of the endings and while they're interesting at some points the gameplay to get those endings is not.

With the true ending being locked until you see all other endings, one must be highly dedicated to the needy streamer to get through the slog of the gameplay loop

What a game for sure, I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this. Borderlands as a whole in my opinion needs a complete overhaul as a game series.

I'm not sure if they need to turn to a more streamlined single-player story (Uncharted/Last Of Us) or change how they present their combat (Yakuza 7 turning into a turn-based RPG instead of a more open-style combat).

I did use certain mods before watching reviews of the game and I'm glad I did. I found everything the game presented lackluster and boring. 4-5 types of enemies which each have maybe another 3-4 different types (here's a skeleton now here's a skeleton but he uses magic)

Even getting low-level legendaries I still found them uninteresting to use compared to some of the weapons 2 and even 3 had in their games. But all this being said there were points where I was having fun despite finding the game quite boring

I couldn't tell you any endearing moments with any of the characters, and I found it very confusing that they went with 90% new characters rather than just importing 4-5 games worth of characters (BL1/2/3/Pre Sequal + Tales from the BL) I also thought Andy Samberg and Wanda Sykes were super weird to be in a game like this

I will praise the game on the quality of their side quests as there were multiple times where I forgot the objective I was currently working on had no part of the main story but still felt as and at sometimes more detailed than the main story

I also am split on the multiclass system as it holds to the DnD system now but I think if you were gonna do the multiclass you should have given us full-fledged skill trees as in the "main series" games but in Wonderlands it feels like they just either took one skill tree out of three or melded all three into one skill tree so you miss out on a lot more customization

The game I think is worth a purchase if you can get it on sale as I don't think the game is worth 60$ and you can skip the DLC unless you have a group to play with who are diehard BL fans as all the DLC is endgame loot dungeons with difficulty customization

One of the best in the series, It lays the foundation for a fresh restart of the series that it desperately needs now

A brand new dex with no returning Pokemon until post-game and one of the best stories that Pokemon has presented

It does lag with the story and progression-wise around the middle of the game just with spawn rates of Pokemon feels like a nonstop gauntlet while trying to get to your destination

Did not have much interest in post-game due to being unable to get certain events Pokemon and the entralink services shutting down

My expectations went through waves of emotions as I saw more and more of this

when the game first was shown at Summer Game Fest I was super excited about the art and theme of the game I instantly fell in love.

Though once the game was shown as a puzzle platformer I instant wrote it off and thought nothing else of it until I played the demo

The demo sucked me right back in as it showed it such a short time the connection between our two heroes and the gameplay style of both

I think both playstyles (Trevor and Kovacs) have their ups and downs in terms of frustrating sections, but overall the story of the game easily makes up for it

I do wish the game wasn't as linear as it is because I do feel with everything the game presents it could have opened itself up to more experimentation or more of this world explored than just what is presented to you