Recent reviews by Honor Guard

for a TLDR : Good gunplay & gameplay, just suffers from balancing

Gameplay
To start with the pre match stuff, you have a loadout on either Light, Medium or Heavy, you go in match with (This has four equipped items (1 gun or melee, and 3 throwables, gadgets & the like, all of which recharge & have infinite ammo) and one ability which you can always swap), this only matters truly on the Ranked mode (locks you to your loadout + your four reserve items (This can be a mix of anything stated prior), for the gameplay it is speedy & snappy, naturally favoring Lights a deal (will get to this later)

The Maps are all fairly vertical focused with various ones being good on horz view points and various buildings are highly destructible (you can break the bottom floor a deal & bring down the building, or a section of it, make holes in walls, floors & ceilings, various barrels of different flavors (To sum it up, EMP, Cover maker, fire, Explosive, gas and such)

Classes
You have Light (150 HP ; Specs into DPS, Mobility (Vertical & horz), and ambushing), Medium (250 ; specs into being a support (Mobility enhancing, faster reviving, etc) and area defense) and Heavy (350 ; specs into area defense),the size of your model (thus your hitbox) also changes with the character (So Small feels like a five foot bloke where the Heavy is a 6 foot five body builder), which leads into

Balance
Light
Abilities : Grapple Hook(Do I need to say? Doesn't grab objects, but does send you flying around) , Evasive Dashes(Three chainable teleporty dodges (Think Bloodhound step in Elden ring) that can also be used for mobility purposes) and Cloaking (Makes some noise while moving, be it quiet while still, otherwise does what you would expect)

I shall be blunt, Light feels to be the best for most play (Can't speak for pro league) due to you having a smaller hitbox, better self regen, and faster movement prior to your three abilities, in addition to rather high damage weapon options for all ranges (M11 which has fully reved Minigun DPS in a accurate package, Sniper if you desire to do longer range, among several other options) that are easy to use due to previous mentioned things which lets you duel anyone & have quite a good chance of winning, or if things go south you can back off & escape more reliably than the other weight classes (Effectively you decide the rules of engagement a lot, in addition to having the best DPS weapons in the game for most straight up fights)

Heavy
Abilities : Charge n Slam (your only real movement, you charge forward breaking buildings, cover & damaging enemies as you go, and can jump to do a slam), Winch Claw (Hook ability, can grab objectives to tug them around a bit based on one), Mesh Shield (750 HP Frontal shield, you lose the ability to fire, and on putting it away deals 250 esh Damage to the shield), and Goo Gun (Fun toy, lets you make cover, fire traps, block off sections & etc)

Where as Heavy on the other hand kinda sucks compartively (You are slower, bigger target, your guns do have better capacities on average than the other classes but tend to feel worse due to one reason or another (Grenade launcher on heavy must bounce once prior to exploding, compared to the others which impact det, your highest sustain dps option which effectively locks you down, requires a spinup to reach full dps and is inaccurate, the light effectively has in the M11 as a fast reloading, higher DPS option once you account for the minigun's inaccuracy it has option, that still lets you strafe & has good uptime prior to said zippy reload) and gadgets are nice (RPG & Lockbolt very much so), but tend to feel meh compared to a Medium & Light's kits overall (To sum it up, feels like you do less DPS compartively for one reason or another, and your increased HP doesn't mean much due to reduced speed, and increased hitbox sizes (Thus easier to headshot you to sum it up, or generally hit you with stuff that would've missed a medium or light ; for reference, think of light as a 4-5 foot person that is skinny, medium as a more average build and heavy as a 6-7 foot giant muscle builder)

Mediums
Abilities : Sentry Gun, Heal beam and dematerializer gun (makes walls, ceilings & the like "disappear" effectively (So you can open a line of sight temply than shut it off)

Finally Mediums sit in the middle, always nice to have, weapon options are nice, and etc (Overall just good, and heavy tends to desire having one)

Game Modes
you have several, some classics as well (TDM), but to use a fairly common game mode, quick Cash Grab, you have three teams of three people each, that all strive to secure a payment (Obtained by taking the cash box to the vault & securing it til the deposit happens, enemy teams can also hack said vault to give it to themselves if they get close enough) , there are generally one cash box location & two vaults (Which tend to be placed in/around destructible terrian) and first team to 20k wins, this also applies semi to the Ranked mode (More teams (two matches of four at start & it does a bracket system that cuts the lower end til you get to one team versus one team)

Overall ; I like the game, it has good gunplay, maps and such, just some balancing issues to iron out

Crysis 2's Remaster benefits the most of the graphical updates, while still suffering issues of a lack of multiplayer

Gameplay : Crysis 2 switches from crysis 1's formula to something more Call of Duty adjacent at the time (So two main weapons, Grenades, Rocket launcher & C4 is your campaign loadout after you get setup), with the nanosuit being simplfied down (you now have Power (neutral mode that does nothing by default), Armor (now a activable mode which passively drains energy in addition to drain based on damage recieved for protection), Cloak (Same as prior, just suppressors now make it possible to fire while cloaked), and nanovision (replaces night vision & uses energy to give you a (Blindingly white) thermal vision) mixed with stealth kills while cloaked being added in and the binos showing "Tactical" oppertunities (Most of the time it is supplies or going you can flank here)

Story : Crysis 2(2023) takes place years after crysis 1 (2020) & warhead(2020), with you stepping in the boots of Alatraz, a US Marine (Force recon), as he goes to rescue Nathan Ghoul (a scientist trapped in the NYC area due to the virus outbreak) before things go wrong in o so many ways

in terms of The remasters, Crysis 2 is the best before & after, Crysis 3 has the better gameplay still of the two and crysis 1's RM I am still conflicted over

TLDR : Good Game, Good story, the standard issues per the remasters for crysis (Multiplayer removed ; so sadly no Hunter mode, or such)

Gameplay : Crysis 3 overall evolves on the formula of crysis 2 (Quality of life improvements, in addition to opening up attachments more similar to Crysis 1 & warhead compared to Crysis 2), in addition to returning guns, you now have the Predator bow (a full stealth ranged option with four arrowheads to select (One retrievable(Impact arrows ; still overall strong single target damage), rest is not but also far more powerful (Airburst frag grenades (Proxi det), Electric arrows (Enjoy the water, or anti machine capabilities), and the Thermite (the "I hate YOU in particular and is decent at close groups) to compensate), Typhoon (Handheld metal storm (more like lead storm with that fast disappearing 720 round mag), and more. But per the norm of crysis games, you have a nanosuit with different modes (Neutral (AKA Power, the default), Armor (defensive mode, drains energy for protection), and cloak (Energy drain based on speed for cloaking (Better when crouched for being undetected), Nano vision (Thermals ; Improved from crysis 2 to not blind you), and the binos (Mark targets, supplies & such)). To end the gameplay section off, you can do stealth (Pure, or aggressive), frontal assault, and so on for your tactics, gameplay tends to be fast, but not the fastest normally (Respect the turrets & such)

Story(Spoilers for the setup) ; Crysis 3 (2047) takes place two decades & some after Crysis 2(2023), with Ceph being for most part eliminated, Prophet being captured by CELL, whom have took a large deal of influence through a mysterious source of infinite energy that they have sold for cheap before cranking the price up, you step back in the Nanosuit 2 under Prophet's wary, almost robotic setup
Small note : The Humor in Crysis 3's story, along with quite a lot of the cutscenes are memorable (Particularly enjoyed the second mission's bit of humor with how innocent & confused Prophet sounded at the end with that final question)


Campaign missions : Each mission features more unique terrian & setups, most weapons are introduced in the first three missions, with varying combat situtions (Marshlands among ruined buildings, high verticality mixture of a low land valley & higher up "Valley hills" (Sky scarper ruins)

QOL Changes & such from Crysis 2 ; Nanovision no longer blinds you (they chose a darker color for the basis of most things, rather than flashbang you for a bit white), you now can set loadouts (three or four of them) for nanosuit upgrades that you can easily swap between (two button presses), Special Ammo crates exist now (Which resupplies various weapons like the X-43 Mike, K-volt, gauss rifle & such), Special Ammo returns from crysis 1 & warhead (explosive ammo, AP, etc for various weapons like the Grendel), marking targets is now a hover over rather than click, lists weapon they have in addition to other notable features of the target (Even a 3d view of them) , Codex entries & various bits of intel that helps you understand the world better, and much more

I would recommend it on sale (Base price is currently 30 USD)

for a Quick TLDR
The game is set in a alt history where the soviet union advances in science fast prior to WW2 kicking off and is set around 1960 esh, you play as P-3 a soldier under the chief scientist of the soviet union & sent to deal with a robot issue prior to a launch of a new techonolgy

in terms of gameplay ; it is a fairly fast paced FPS, where you lack a proper sprint (be it P-3 can move quite fast when he has the movement speed upgrade & dashes) which focuses on a mix of you having three powers (Shok and two you can select between freezing, lifting, and so on) on enemies) and a selection of soviet era weapons & some syfi guns (AKM, PM Pistol, KS-23 shotgun, Railgun, Rocket launcher, and a variety of makeshift melee weapons & such) that can be upgraded to do different things (Such as the PM can be made into a single action Revolver esk weapon when aimed) and enemies have different weaknesses & strengths

Story wise ; it is nice, could be better however, and is continued in the dlcs

in terms of this dlc ; it picks ending #1 and gives you afew toys to mess with (a minigun/line rifle of sorts where it fires a horz laser and a polearm that does double hits) with two new enemy types (One of which is sorta four in one (the beads which can be by themselves, link two and three times to make more advanced enemies and several can link together to make a boss), and the dolls/test dummies which are relatively durable but can be torn asunder by a good hit & have to reassemble themselves, otherwise able to use their limbs as weapons)

Story wise ; it is fine, feels a little confused at times (but that fits P3's mood in this) but is short & sweet with a decent ending

In terms of MOST of this dlc, I liked it as a good change of pace (lots of CS Surfing pretty much, action is here & there, but overall you are doing surfing & some parkour), Only issue I take is the ending being a subway surfer moment with hard bound keys (WASD Q&E along with space bar) which would've been better if it didn't have said keys & the map didn't curve & such in odd ways

Story wise : this is set in ending #2 and mainly explores limbo & lets you understand afew characters better

If I had to say recommend or not ; It is a neutral (I wish a mixed was a option)

For a TLDR ; inspired by SCP and Half Life 1, Abiotic Factor is a story driven survival with some rpg elements (Skills, armor sets, traits, flaws and "classes" which for most part determine your starting, but some add more ways to get certain skills faster)

For a more complex overview
Gameplay :
Overall it is pretty nice, you repurpose various things into weapons and armor, can upgrade earlier items into more advanced items (the starting set armor can be upgraded to stay effective for the final boss fight as of right now as a example), ranged weapons start off very sway heavy & wavey til you worked with them a bit (Every rank in the accuracy skill both raises your effective range (Beyond this you have far more sway) and reduces sway amount of the crosshair), while melee is well, melee, it is relatively simple (sharp & Blunt for your two main types, blunt has a charged attack & sprint attack(Treat this as a power attack), sharp can be thrown & can bleed enemies, both can eventually overcome resistance to their respective type and gain a instant kill chance) but gets more werid/interesting with various weapons (How do you enjoy Fire Pools on hit? What about Laser disco?), there are also more dedicated weapons to throwing (Disco Laser grenade being a favorite of mine, before you ask it isn't consumed and teleports to your inventory after it expends some of it's charge).

Player character wise:
You are reasonably durable when armored, health system is as one would expect in a survival game (your natural regeneration is very slow, you will normally use healing items of one variant or another (crafting benches can heal you passively, at no cost past a intial upgrade fee and needing to be powered) and finally for the character creation, you have intially a Class (Determines your starting items, if any, some of your starting skills, talent points and possibly flaws), Talents (Postive traits, can be pretty nice or QoL (Ability to drink tainted water without straining or boiling it first as a example), and Flaws (Can go from barely notable to "WHY DID I PICK THIS?!") which can be mutually exclusive with the postive Talents (Example Self defence training which gives you more melee damage and pacisfist, which caps your offensive skills to a quarter of the max), otherwise as the gameplay overview gave you a idea, you aren't a soldier, not even a security guard in majority of cases(one of the classes, which has one of the worse flaws in the game to be honest), so expect a touch of a rough time in some fields til you get better at it, be it the payoff is quite well (ranged weapons start off hard to use, but once you get it up there, they can be quite accurate for the average range I found myself at)

Story (Yes expect some light spoilers)
Welcome to the Casade Facility, a mix of Black Mesa (HL1) and the SCP Foundation, with a wide variety of various things host to the inside, such as a Memory Guillentine (want to change your starting choices at a cost of resetting all skills to five?), and far more oddities both living & not. But to the opening you are a new hire for one of several positions and get caught in the mess that happens finding yourself having to survive and escape the facility, meeting various faces that you shall see throughout the game, such as Abe & Janet, and Thule, otherwise in this facility you may wish to be observant to see certain details I shall call them for now, which will help you on your journey through both the Facility and Portal worlds. And to a part that I enjoyed a deal, Portal Worlds which are as they sound a portal to a different place of some kind, be it alternate reality (How do you enjoy Alien worlds as one such example?) as you progress through


Overall : Abiotic is a rather fun game, featuring various QoL features along the progression path(If you have a pain point, it generally can be solved in one way or another, be it power, base defense, traveling faster between areas rather than on foot or tram, etc.) and I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys the idea of being a random scientist in Black mesa and/or the SCP foundation.

So to begin, keep in mind this review is after finishing the game and doing all side quests, trying out the various systems and so on, so I am not trying to ruin every surprise.
Dying light The Beast takes place post DL2, but only contains two things that reference Dying Light 2 (Both of which don't require DL2 to grasp much of) and only knowledge you truly need is Dying Light 1's story and the Following for DL1 as well (As both are fairly linked to the story's beginning & gets referenced every so often)

For a Brief summary of the game ; It is a evolution on DL2, and does not repeat the many issues it had at launch, Story is good, gameplay is good, gameplay takes alot from Dying Light 2 and refines it, gore got amped up (it is a understatement to say you only tear a few enemies in half or their head off) , Parkour is good along with finally setting up for a dlc/expansion/new game for the Finale

To the Gameplay (Summary is it will feel similar to DL2, but more refined & Polished in various ways, in addition to some new toys (Revolvers as a example)
The Beast uses DL2's gameplay as a basis (Parkour, combat and such), expands upon it and refines it a bit further (So Parrys, perfect dodges, various parkour moves & objects come across as well as guns' mechanics (yes you get access to them at the start pretty much, and the main issue is ammo) ; Summary Overall fun

Enemy design follows similar to DL2's (Degenerates, Biters, Virals, Volatiles of course (More melee based like the DL2's variant as one would guess), demolishers, and pretty much any you can think of from DL2 returns with some changes here and there ; Summary if you played DL2 you will recall various enemy templates, be it their looks did get changed up (As well as the Gore system and the execution system some)

And fInally, a more core mechanic of DL TB, which was semi featured in DL2 is the "Rage" mechanic (beast mode) which heals you per hit, heals you intially when it begins and becomes more verstile as you play through the game. To use this you must get into melee combat generally (Perfect dodges, parries, melee hits, melee kills and taking damage all fills the bar), after filling the bar in combat it will automatically activate (At first, this gets changed as you grow stronger) and do some of the previous stated things in addition to swapping you to your bare hands (Which have been for lack of a better word, super charged) and sometimes doing executions at random on enemies and otherwise having prompts to do it on low health specials (Such as Vollies and demolishers, Banshee's ones are rather funny/horrifying as a headsup)

Parkour wise ; we have the good riddance of the yellow everywhere from DL2 (It has been replaced more generally by bird poop & the like, yes gross, equally it is more natural than yellow paint everywhere, otherwise bits of cloth caught and so on, lots more immersive in general in how it is displayed, but to the point it is more akin to DL2 as the basis with bits & bobs from DL1 (Such as the gravity), with various places having parkour sections, but suffers similar to the following of a lot of inbetween places lack parkour & expect use of the car (this is more notable at night due to volatiles naturally outrun you on foot without anything to slow them down)

Unto the Story ; To keep it fairly low spoilers (So this stuff is first 30 minutes tops for any fine details), you are captured, expertimented on, and weakened from years of being imprisoned, after breaking out you start a revenge quest which shall proceed through many twists & turns (Some more expected than others), fighting bosses (Chimeras) of more unique stature than the average foe to gain strength to complete your vengence for yourself and those in the valley. Now to parts I am mixed on, I feel some characters show up, get used for a bit and than just go quiet for long stretches which may be expanded upon with more side quests in the future (There are, at launch, ten side quests which are all Quite good.)


Current Issues : Vehicle controls & some other controls are hardbound (So unable to change them)
Review was made close to launch (18th of Sept 2025) at the 28th esh

To start ; Got this for free around a week or so ago (12/4/2024 is current date) due to Digital Extremes discounting it in prep for Warframe 1999

Summary : 2009 third person shooter with some issues (in terms of techincal issues, UI only, in terms of gameplay issues, the game lacks in teaching the player certain things as another example)

Game when crypto NFT & other buzz words, hadto leave steam due to that and only offered refunds to those who spent in last FIFTEEN days prior to announcement, otherwise starts you fresh on epic to my knowledge