Recent reviews by AstroAss

Bought the DLC, game updated, can no longer launch it, Steam spits out the dreaded "Game configuration unavailable" error... yaay... so my game is bricked now, despite trying countless "fixes" from the net, including reinstalling it,

Thanks for that.

Bought it now, just in case Bruce Lee does something naughty and gets this pack delisted :)

I'm giving this a negative review because the absolute DOGSH*T "AI" voices ruin the vibe so so much...

Also the game seems to be CPU-limited, not sure where (I'm running a 9950X3D), but my 4090 is sleepy at 4K maxed. I'd expect a better framerate, but I can't even change the CPU affinity to my X3D cores because EAC doesn't allow me to control my own damn game. So this sucks...

I'll update it to positive if the devs stop being lazy and use some of the money they made to hire real people to do the job a 1000x better than whatever this pathetic excuse for voice is...and remove EAC (or optimize the game better CPU-wise).

2K and their parent Take Two scum are at it again, so I'm leaving a negative review and will never buy their games again after this nonsense with the spying.

You want my money? GOG-ONLY now. We cannot trust Steam, because it's a rental and these kinds of "updates" are forced on you, whereas with a DRM-free offline installer you can at least just...not update and hoard the older version install files.

Take-Two are the most disgusting publisher out there, support that scum at your own peril.

You had me at "FREE" ❤️

I have a 4090, so it obviously plays well at 4K and looks truly fantastic!
(I wish more people could experience these games the way high end GPU owners do, but that's just how it is. Perhaps quite a few people will also upgrade before the full game is out anyway!)

That being said, a few issues to address going further:
1) Some of the fluorescent lights have no emissive materials, so they look grey
2) Glass bottles need transparency and shadows
3) Volumetrics perhaps need toning down (everything gets a bit milky)
4) HDR support. I did some tonemapping and that worked well-enough for this (it's nicer to make them highlights pop), but I'd like to see proper HDR support for OLED owners :)
5) The gravity gun's orange glow sometimes works and shines onto walls, sometimes doesn't - you can just move the camera round and it'll spawn and despawn depending on the angle. And the gravity gun itself clips through walls if you are right up against them.
6) Perhaps not possible due to how Remix works, but all this nice realistic lighting falls apart as soon as you realize you're just a floating camera. Pick up any object and it casts shadows, but Gordon and his guns never do, because he's a ghost...
7) Flames could use improvement. Something about them just does not work, they're too flat maybe. Or maybe the game needs proper HDR somehow to make them look good?
8) Again not the fault of the modders or Remix, but modern games generally have way more clutter around - garbage, loose objects, etc. Some of the environments just seemed too empty, like old games would be - especially around Ravenholm (it kinda wants some trash scattered around, or some discarded objects. Some streets just feel too clean, but I guess you could always imagine that everyone left in a big hurry...but then everything is salvaged, there are traps, etc. Dunno... feels like it needs clutter)

9) IMPORTANT! There's this very noticeable flicker with Frame Gen on that happens immediately when you move. To replicate - approach a table with some objects, let's say, and then stand still. Press A or D to strafe for a split-second - you'll see the frame flicker with a wrong frame. If you alternate between A-stop-D-stop-A-stop-D-stop>repeat - you will VERY obviously see the flicker every time you start moving. I noticed this even with the Nvidia's GTC demo. This REALLY needs fixing. I actually noticed the same behavior in Portal RTX too, so it must be a Remix issue!

The rest is fantastic. Superb new assets, sublime (yet true to the original vision) lighting, loads of new effects (particle glow is especially cool when pieces of flame and embers light up the walls/floors around them) and all that with great physics (still to this day!) and in a cult classic of a game.

I'm definitely looking forward to playing the full thing when it eventually comes out. Fantastic job, guys!

Downvote purely because I bought the first two games in FULL when they were realeased and they were awesome, but THIS one is just insulting...

• First - I had to wait for a year to wait out the Epic bribed exclusivity.
  
• It came out on Steam - cool, but the buying was extremely convoluted and I genuinely did not understand what I'm supposed to buy to have the full 3 games... The price was insane too, so I wait more...
  
• Then - after the "simplification of the buying process" - I have to RE-BUY the content I already paid for, otherwise I have no access to it!!! - Completely unlike with Hitman 2, where the two games merged WITHOUT me having to re-buy the content of the first. Greedy much?
  
• Finally - IOI learned from the Forza devs (or similar) in that the "Deluxe" edition isn't very Deluxe, meaning that 6 DLC packs are not even included! You know - I'd have minded having to re-buy the content I already paid you money for a bit less if you at least included ALL the new stuff with the Deluxe - but no, you must scam...

On top of all that, we have more negatives:

• Always-online... No internet? Playing portable? Screw you, apparently, no progression or unlocks for you. What happens when the servers shut down???
  
• Downgraded visual fidelity of some in-game assets. I noticed that Hitman 1+2 is twice the size of World of Assassination. Part of it is that the game is likely structured in a smarter way for reusing assets - that's fine. Maybe there's some compression too. But all the gear pictures show heavy JPG artifacting now, which wasn't the case before, and I'm pretty sure some of the textures got a downgrade too. Noticed some lower quality models as well.
  
• Progress carryover no longer available? I hear that the Hitman 2 > 3 progress carryover was shut down some time last year? If you're a returning player and haven't done the progress transfer (a really dumb thing, considering IOI already have your entire player profile) - you're probably SOL. Luckily, I did mine in time, so I have all my progress and unlocks.
  
• Broken HDR. This is a problem the devs seem to refuse to fix and it's been like this for years (even on consoles, it seems, looking at reddit). Using the in-game HDR mode, the game just becomes washed out, dim and kinda brown-ish - no expanded colour gamut or highlights to be seen! Your best bet is to use external tools, like RTX HDR, Special-K or Windows Auto-HDR.
  
• The game is crashy... TWICE now I went through an entire mission and then crashed at the very end when I tried to change back into my suit to walk out in style. First time it was in a normal mission, so I had an autosave nearby - no biggie. The second time it was in a featured contract, so I spent ages going through it to achieve Silent Assassin, only to crash out at the VERY end - with no ability to save or load these idiotic "must do in 1 go" contracts. Waste of time!

Absolutely pathetic business practices!
The game is brilliant, but there's just so, SO MUCH to hate about how the business is conducted that it can easily put people off with this faff and restrictions! It really is a colossal shame.

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That being said - some positives (at least while this always-online game remains playable):

• All 3 games under 1 roof - that is a COLOSSAL amount of content, honestly! I've got my H1+2 unlocks carried over, but even then it's daunting to think about just how much time it will take to go through all the new stuff.
  
• A few new unlocks for some of the older maps (seems like it, anyway)
  
• Old escalations and seasonal content replayable at any time - I appreciate this, because I missed out on a lot of it back in the day ("live service" nonsense does NOT work with an adult life)
  
• Suits and gear are now categorized better, which is helpful when you have a large number of things to pick from
  
• RAYTRACING! I can now see that bald head reflecting off car paint, glass and so on. It is very demanding on the hardware, so it's not for everyone (yet), but it's certainly a welcome improvement for all 3 games' content 👍
  
• VR - not gonna play it (even though I own a VR headset), but it's there and seems fun.
  
• Freelancer mode - I'm not yet sure if I vibe with the "roguelike" aspect of it, but it's a step towards bringing back what was cool about Blood Money - the hideout and money!

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Overall - yeah, the game is truly amazing and would have you busy until you're truly sick of it (hundreds, if not thousands of hours between all the content and unlocks). It plays incredibly well, it looks great and I can confidently say I really enjoy the reboot series!

That being said... The utter greed and hatred for their customers are clearly shown through the absolutely fúçked-up buying process, the money-grabbing DLC that isn't included in the "Deluxe" edition, the forced online that renders the game utterly devoid of anything if played offline (this worries me - what happens when the servers are shut down?) and the inability to fix glaring issues like HDR support.

Make no mistake: The developers are absolutely brilliant and they deserve every bit of praise for what they'd achieved here. It's the "business" pricks that are ruining IOI's reputation here, as is the case with modern gaming.

I can only imagine what could have been achieved with less greed and without all progression locked behind a stable internet connection to their servers... This is a game worth preserving - it's a crying shame IOI won't actually do it...

Extra note: Seems like The Peacock Project aims to create local server software for this game, so you can take control of your saves and have progression exactly the same way as IOI's dumb online servers. Seems like it works well, so if the game doesn't get major changes pushed to somehow destroy that project - it's something to keep an eye out for those wanting offline play and for when IOI will inevitably kill this game by shutting down their own services. Big thanks to the community for fixing things that shouldn't be broken in the first place!

Download more fps!

It's honestly kinda magic and exactly what I was looking for. I have a beefy rig, but bypassing fps caps and smoothing out animations is something I definitely wanted to do, so this is perfect!

I know people say this doesn't work in fullscreen or with VRR, but it worked in fullscreen for me (perhaps a fluke?), so I'm actually even happier than I was expecting to be! (edit: ok, those games were "false" fullscreen, not explicitly written as "fullscreen", but they were borderless)

Baldur's Gate 3 is so smooth now :)
Elden Ring - 60fps cap begone (without the need to mod and lose online access)!

I've also tried this while watching youtube videos and movies/tv on Plex and it works - vide content gets double the fps and looks smooth!

Deffo recommended 👍

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Edit:

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - perfect for me due to a CPU bottleneck.
PPSSPP - 30fps PSP games upped to 60 look amazing! 60fps upped to 120 :)

This is great! Just desperately needs VRR support!

I'm only about to finish Episode 1, but daaaaaaayum is the game nice!

The shooting is pretty much flawless, the chainsaw leg is just pure genius, the movement is unrestrictive and very fast (I can never ever not praise a fast-paced game, seriously!) and the art style shows a lot of love put into it. The music is awesome, just a banger after banger 🤘

The collectibles on each level leave me scratching my head. I'm usually a very thorough player, but I still come up 1 casette or chip short in some levels. Not that I particularly mind for this type of game, but if you're into collectible hunting - you have your work cut out for you (unless you use guides, which is a lame way to play).

Lots of options to tweak various aspects of graphics and controls, including one of the best TAA implementations I've seen in a game (separate sliders for various aspects of TAA - frame blending, motion, sharpening, etc to make it look just right for you!)

The game runs at 4K maxed and is just permanently pinned at 165fps on a 165Hz screen for me (though I do use an RTX 4090 - my CPU is pretty old). The mouse input always feels extremely responsive, which is exactly what you'd want in a game like this 👍

The cyberpunk-y visuals REALLY pop on my Quantum Dot display, with beautiful and vibrant colors all-round! A display with a deep color gamut genuinely does this game justice.

A lot of people compare this with DOOM 2016 and such, but I like this one better, because it's so much faster and more fluid (and DOOM was already very fluid in terms of movement and combat!).

So far - I have...nothing negative to say! I'll update the review once I've played more and/or finished the game.

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EDIT 1: Episode 2 finished. Still loads of fun and the amount of enemies and combat speed overall both get a healthy jump vs Episode 1. Some arenas really keep you busy and focused!

Still can't say I have any complaints. Maybe the visibility during powerup pickups could be better, but that's about it.

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EDIT 2: Finished the game. The last boss took a few reloads to figure out what to do with it (it wasn't really immediately obvious from the S.A.M.M's dialogue), but once I figured out what to do - no problem at all. So I guess I see what some people meant about the last boss being a bit odd, but really no biggie in the end.

Other than that - LOVE the game - it does a lot of stuff better than DOOM 2016/Eternal, so in my book - this game's gold 🤘

The music just never got tiring or repetitive either - there was just always something new to listen to, which is awesome!

TURBO OVERKILL absolutely deserves all the glowing reviews it got! 👍

Bit of a weird game. A scavenger hunt while trying to escape what seems to be a failing Chinese (at least some references point to that) ghost city? The artwork is all generated (back when image generators were still bad) and achieves an interesting and unsettling look because of it.

Got all the items in on my first playthrough, so I'm happy with that 👍

Easy to get 100% cheevos without too much thinking (or guides), you just need to explore.

Overall - definitely worth the price of admission, which is FREE :)