Recent reviews by Atlas

Welp, they've broken the game... again.
As of the latest soft-update, they've bricked settings changes, they no longer save. So when you close the game and restart it, back to defaults.
I've lost just about all good will towards 343, they've shown themselves to be not only completely incapable of launching a game properly, or fixing it within a year, but that they can't even roll out updates without breaking the simplest of features.

I've played Halo since 2005, and now I'm done with this franchise. Well done 343, you've succeeded in doing something I thought would never happen, made sure I never play Halo again.

Don't play this game. No matter what 343 say, they're either lying, or will break it further down the road in increasingly impressively stupid ways.

After 150+ hours in this game, playing since 2012, I can honestly say that people shouldn't play this game.
Gaijin have gradually made progression beyond tier 4 almost impossible without a premium monthly subscription, and the situation is only getting worse.
While the game is a lot of fun and quite addictive once you get into it, you really don't feel like you're making any progress at all, and there's nothing you can do about that outside of giving Gaijin insane amounts of money.
What started off as a wonderful and more friendly alternative to hardcore war flight sims, and later World of Warplanes (and later World of Warships / Tanks), has turned into a painful cash grab.

I honestly cannot recommend anyone play this game unless they're happy to spend uncomfortable amounts of money on it.

A great game with a simple premise - finish the level and collect as much money along the way.
City of Brass is a very unique game with lots of little modifiers to gameplay such as equipment, armours and different weapons which change the way you play.

Since the addition of characters with different stats and weapons, the game had become a lot more interesting and fun to play, and I hope the developers continue to add lots more levels, characters and equipment in the future.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an incredibly ambitious, expansive and exciting game, based in a realistic, living world, filled with NPC's who talk about the world you inhabit with other NPC's, occasionally giving you useful information on alternative infiltration methods or paths, and sometimes, information on areas you have yet to explore, or areas you didn't even know existed.

DEMD is very much a game for strategists, rewarding those who plan and utilise stealth, while punishing those who move in guns blazing. A method of game design that has unfortunately been in decline over the last 10 years or so.

As always DEMD is very much reflective of current first-world political landscapes, showing a very much exaggerated version of the current attitude to politics, and the NPC's reflect the general civilian opinions, that the oppressive government is controlling media and enforcing the law to an unnecessary but ultimately self-damaging extent in response to internal and external pressure in the form of terror attacks.

In DEMD you are provided with a series of rudimentary choices, whether to side with the augmented civilians, or the government backed militant forces, an interesting position, as throughout gameplay I was never sure whether I was doing the "right" thing, and that is where this game shines; As a stealth, narrative-driven semi open-world game, it's pretty basic, fun abilities to play with, but locked behind a gameplay wall, reminiscent of having abilities and equipment locked to levels in other games, but as a serious satire piece on the current political landscape, this is a brilliant game, blurring the lines between what is "right" and "wrong", forcing you into the position, of not really being sure whether what yo are doing is ever right, but pushing you on, following your initial choice which cannot be taken back.

This game shows the futility of both faction's actions, and that the conflict between the militants and augmented will simply amplify until one side is triumphant over the other, but destroying a large part of itself in the process.

The gameplay itself is almost identical to Human Revolution, with improved mouse smoothing to help prevent the jerkiness of the camera this time around, but from a gameplay perspective, very little has changed, with the exception of having some new abilities.

With RPG elements being part-and-parcel of a Deus Ex title, the inventory, collection and consumption systems are almost unchanged and fairly rudimentary, with nothing particularly special about them.
The inventory's context menu (right click on objects) has an issue of selection, forcing you to left-click away to cancel the menu before opening it on another object a lot of the time, leaving you frustrated when you finally manage to clear out 20 different pieces of junk from the inventory.

Although on my third playthrough now, I am still finding new secrets, new areas and new items to play with, explore and learn about, this game is filled to the brim with optional content that, unfortunately due to the style of game, many players will never see.

Many will shun this game for it's short narrative which can be beaten in a few hours, whereas myself, currently at 25 hours, and still finding new content in a world which is far larger than initially realised.

The game's main major fail is that it has all of this wonderful, interesting and sometimes funny (NPC dialogue) content which many players will never see, as it is not along the main narrative line, and is not seen unless you take to an extreme amount of exploring between missions, exploring the different areas using the transit and sewer systems.

I love exploring generally unseen areas, the first time I realized I could open a sewer manhole cover, I fell in love, escaping firefights which I started frequently in my first play through by walking around 50 feet below my enemies, allowing me to reposition, explore the backend of the city, gain access to areas generally far more difficult to explore, discover areas that aren't seen until later in the game along the narrative line, and finding useful equipment which can make the story and exploration far more interesting.

Many, many computer terminals and information devices are strewn across the game's map, which allow you to gather information from insight into the world you inhabit, to grocery lists. All of these make the world feel just a little bit more alive.

Related to the computer terminals, pretty much all the security doors can be opened by obtaining a security code from various places, instead of hacking it. You can get these from computer logs, audio logs, NPC chatter, sometimes from world elements and other places, all of this makes for a much more immersive experience, it's a wonderful feeling to casually sit next to 2 NPC guards and overhear the code to a door, casually wander off and completely circumvent their security due to the guards incompetence.

With all of this in mind, DEMD makes for an interesting, if not convoluted game when taking ALL elements into account.
DEMD succeeds in strides in its narrative, world building, open-world gameplay and freedom between missions, but fails on more basic elements such as controls, ability accessibility and voice acting (sometimes coming off very unbelievably, breaking immersion at times).

DEMD must be commended for its use of curfews and their programmed responses are wonderful, and really add to the illusion that this is indeed a real world.

In conclusion, DEMD is quite a good game, with clear passion and hard work put into the storyline, world-building, art, animation, world population (NPC's, items, computers, messages etc) open-world exploration, freedom and abundance of hidden areas, but falls short in others like controls, access to abilities, forcing you to toggle abilities at times to prevent overheating when you just want to be an unstoppable tank sometimes just for fun.

DEMD isn't a bad game, it's quite a good game, and it doesn't deserve the reception it has received, a game such as this not meeting or exceeding sales predictions casts an uncertain shadow over narrative-focussed games such as Deus Ex and Dishonored, the last refinance of a long-gone era of complex games that require forethought and planning to execute perfect missions, and I hope with all my heart that games like this continue to be made in this scope and attention to detail far into the future.

DEMD Ratings:

Narrative Storyline: 8.5 / 10
World-Building & Believability: 8 / 10
Controls and Player: 6 / 10
Graphics: 9.5 / 10
Animations: 9 / 10
Voice Acting: 6 / 10
Open-World Aspects: 9 / 10

A short, and slightly predictable storyline, but a brilliant game nonetheless.
It is easy to see what they were trying to do and given their limited resources, they did brilliantly.

I saw this at Rezzed 2016 when I was presenting and talked to a couple of their presenters, it is easy to see the world they were trying to capture, and they did a VERY good job of it.

As a 3D artist myself, I especially appreciate the art direction; it is clear they took aspects and inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey (as the AI has also been inspired by), a similar environment to the 1979 classic Alien (a personal favourite for environmental aesthetics) and with a similar, eerie and suspiciously quiet atmosphere (very similar to Alien Isolation, but more about intrigue than fear) I can safely say that this is one of my favourite small indie games, especially with an emphasis on the graphics and storytelling.

The game is somewhat lacking in audio (besides some background audio and sound FX) which actually complements the style (may have been intentional), but this is hardly noticable as you are trying to work out how to open a door.

I could talk about the graphics; such as my appreciation for the attention to PBR and lighting, but suffice to say, it's a nice looking game.

The game only lasts a couple of hours on the first playthrough (2.5 for me) (depending on how fast you are of course), but given the price, it is well worth the playthrough.

Thanks for reading, Kyle.

Taking into account this game is in Beta, it is understandable that its current state of development is lower than release, but even so, this game has little survival aspects, very little equipment, hardly and zombies and almost no food, especially for a post-apocalyptic zombie survival game.

I am very surprised that Bohemia havent put more effort into this game, as a game developer myself, I can think of many ways to make this game much better with little effort and time.

I am sure this will get better with time but i would avoid purchasing for the time being.

Brilliant addition to the Elder Scrolls saga, the quests and gameplay are extensive, there are hundreds of side quests amongst other things, would recommend to fans of all genres. a brilliant addition to the Elder Scrolls franchise.

As always, well done Bethesda.