Recent reviews by Prim

In all honesty, this game is already hyped up to be the next best thing after sliced bread. That said, it can be unfair and brutal at times.

Personally, what Larian has done is very unique. It's translated the Dungeons and Dragons system very well into a playable Tactical RPG where a lot of the problems that plague the tabletop seem to be mostly filtered away. The AI can be brutal, encounters can be avoided or completed based on the unique talents of the characters and the companion storylines are unique and give a lot of dimension to the characters you are growing along with. Aside from a few choice encounters and unlucky rolls (Which are also commonplace in the tabletop game), it's very, very well done.

Are there things that could be better? Certainly. I'm missing some quality of life stuff with especially inventory management being a pain. (Perhaps something like a quick-to-wares button or shortcut would be grand. Or splitting potions having a hotkey.)

But does that take away from the enjoyment? Not at all.

I currently hit 100 hours in the game, combined with some time in Early Access, and while there's still some polish left doing, I will admit that this so far has been one of the most immersive, absorbing and well written RPG's I have ever played.

A wonderfully simple but somehow complex strategy game that reminds me a lot of a mix of Settlers meets Age of Empires. The amount of clans (although, most of them DLC's that are mostly stronger than a lot of the base ones) make it a game where you have your own niche, and to me the Conquest mode (especially in Co-op!) is the thing I come back for. I highly recommend this game.

I am currently through Mass Effect 2 on Insanity on an all achievements run. So, what have I noticed?

Mass Effect 1 is -actually- playable. The UI upgrades, the gunplay upgrades, Mass Effect 1 feels like such a better game to play and enjoy. The new leveling system feels a lot more rewarding (I used 1-30 instead of 1-60) and in general the game just has a better feel. With these updates, it gets quite close to Mass Effect 2's original gameplay.

I never played Mass Effect 2's DLC's, but Lair of the Shadow Broker was absolutely great and Kasumi and Zaeed are good squadmates that, arguably, bring great trainable powers to the table. HOWEVER. I did feel that the Legendary Edition version of the game was a lot more bug prone than the original version. What I mean with that is the Camera, the Models of especially the Squad mates and some enemies were more prone to .. go wonky. I've had the Camera be placed in the entirely wrong places during cutscenes, I've had squad mates block my view or 'A' pose and spoiler: during the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, I was fighting the Vanguard Spectre Asari boss on Illium and she teleported under the floor with one of her dashes at the end of the fight. This fight, by the way, is -insanely- hard on Insanity difficulty. Clue's in the name, but the entirety of the suicide mission is a joke comparatively.

I'm .. kind of looking forward to Mass Effect 3 and will update once I've hit 100% completion. But I've gotten my money's worth, the integration of all games into one thing is great (although, 120 gb is a bit on the large side. Perhaps a modular system where the games act like DLC that you can toggle on and off would have been great) and the updates they have done make the games flow a lot better.

Oh, and there's mods of course. One mod you -can't- skip is the 'One Probe All Resources' mod for Mass Effect 2. The mini game was neat the first time around, but tedious after your 10th planet.

Update:
I have finished and 100%'d the game. I very, very much enjoyed the entire journey with the updates. ME3's DLC's are engaging and at times hilarious, the ending I chose ('Perfect Ending') was good, all in all. However, what would happen on my machine is that the character models would freak the hell out. More than once have I seen the squad members in ridiculous poses during cutscenes. Funny if you can take them for what they are.

While admittedly after 50+ hours and reaching levels 100+ I still get scared by things, you do get used to the gameplay somewhat. But in the entire meantime the detective gameplay combined with friends makes this such a fun, replayable game that I've easily got my money's worth from it. Is it spooky? Yeah. Is it fun? Yeah. Is it complicated? Not entirely. So it's definitely a recommendation.

After a disappointing Battle for Azeroth, I shopped for a few MMO's as I saw my free time dwindling. Final Fantasy XIV was a great contender, however due to the sub cost I felt I was not able to get my money's worth from the game and quit it. Guild Wars 2, while interesting, didn't attract me anymore after playing for a long time. And then I noticed that I had bought Elder Scrolls Online in a sale a long time ago and decided to give it a shot.

I feel like this game has a very odd learning curve. There is a lot of knowledge the game doesn't tell you about, but with a (mostly) friendly community like I've encountered in the EU, it's been a steady stream of knowledge until I started to understand the game better. In the .. 3-4 weeks I've been playing since making this review, I've hit Champion Level 200 on my first "main" character, a Wood Elf / Bosmer Dragonknight that uses Stamina as their main resource.

I had quite a lot of fun questing through most of the 'Aldmeri Dominion' (One of the three factions) storyline and felt intrigued almost every step of the way. Quest design isn't done with a very heavy hand and sometimes requires some thinking to complete, although it still follows some of the Skyrim quest design pitfalls ("follow the arrow") which can mar some of the experience somewhat. There's a few interesting characters that you'll meet along the way that subvert expectations of story in an MMO, which is a fresh breath. Every province has a larger storyline that is supported by several quest hubs, 'delves' (solo dungeons) and public dungeons (harder dungeons, these bosses can be quite tough).

The crafting system I found was straight-forward and simple and it allows players to craft items that have a "set" (an additional bonus ontop of the already defined things) so you are not forced into dungeons or raids in order to get good gear to get started. This might be a problem or a good thing depending on your perspective but for me as a very much casual player it allowed me to play a strong character without being forced to spend a lot of time.

While there is a defined meta for some classes and gamemodes, the game is very open to newcomers wanting to experiment. Gear is an important thing the higher level you get, however this is true for many MMO's. But where it's variety lies is in the quite broad skill system the game employs. Your classes only define 3 of quite a lot of trees that you can spend your skill points in. Weapons form another tree entirely. So do the guilds, racials and even crafting skills in the game. You can dedicate characters specifically to the purpose you want them, which is a nice thing. Classes do not define the type of character you will be playing as is often defined in traditional MMORPG's, as such, a Dragonknight can be a good healer and a Nightblade can be an excellent spellcaster. The skills are a base that can be expanded upon with morphs and each changes a character in a unique way, or an ability to have different properties.

One gripe however is the cost of many things. This is two-ways.
1. Gold - Now this isn't a big issue if you do a lot of the 'crafting writs' (daily crafting quests that grant experience, resources and considerable sums of gold at higher levels). I found however that the cost of bag space becomes a bit .. much, especially those without ESO+ that do not have the crafting bag will quickly find themselves wanting more.

2. Time - A lot of the crafting takes time. And I mean a considerable amount of it. One of the traits, a special property used in crafting for equipment, can take up to 5 days to research. This is real-time, 5 days. Now of course you can use the microtransactions store Zenimax provides to buy an instant-complete which only shows what part of the design philosophy has been in the game. It is a black spot, to be sure.

Now, for ESO plus, if you want to explore the game further than the base game allows (which, with Tamriel Unlimited, is quite a lot!) it is a great deal. You will get all the DLC (Which include some of the DLC, but not the most recent as of writing which is Elsweyr), 'Crowns' (Microtransaction currency for the game) equivalent to your subscription for that month, the Crafting bag which holds all your crafting items and for higher level players is an absolute must, and a few exclusive aforementioned microtransactions store deals alongside some buffs to experience, research times and food.

TL;DR It is an MMORPG with quite a lot of depth that innovates on a couple of key things making me like it quite a lot. The community, as I've encountered it, has been quite friendly and although the learning curve is stilted at times, is quite rewarding. However, the looming microtransactions and the pushing of them in many regards does put me off of some of the systems in the game. Despite that, the game is quite fun to play and there is quite a lot of variation to choose from if you know where to look. Luckily, most players are quite willing to help you do that. If you do not want to interact with other players - you can choose not to and play this as a very large very expansive skyrim with a lot less immersion.

dOn'T yOu GuYs HaVe pHoNeS?!

Jokes aside - Steep learning curve but has more depth, more rewarding gameplay and interesting seasons in comparison to the dying Diablo 3. I've only scratched the surface, but it's been a hook.

Stardew Valley is a game that will make you relax and at the same time will absorb your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ life. I own it both on PC and on Switch, and on both I have about equal time spent in the game (although on the Switch, I've gotten significantly 'further').

The atmosphere, gameplay and interaction with the other characters mix seamlessly together to create this world that you 'live' in. There is a lot of things to even 'do' the game with. You can farm, fish, mine, fight or forage to get money. That variety of playstyle also means you can try and master everything. And it's a joy to do so. I love planning the next day in the game and actually doing it, meanwhile thinking about where to go next.

While fun while in AE, once released still plagued by the same issues. It's not optimized, released a DLC during EA period and generally, the developers haven't given a ♥♥♥♥ about the community. Reviews also look very, very bought. Vote with your wallet; Don't buy this game.

Let me start off by saying the following: If you like Single Player RPG's in the vain of Skyrim, but always thought "You know, this would be fun with guns!" this is pretty much the game for you. I bought this game on Launch Day and still I return to this now and then. I haven't even finished all the DLC yet but they are MARVELOUS.

But, if you're looking for a more specific description of why you should get the game, let me help out:

Good things this game has to offer (+):
+ Open world
+ (If hardcore mode enabled) Survival
+ (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) Modding (NO, SERIOUSLY, I CANNOT STRESS THIS HARD ENOUGH)
+ Wacky unexpected gameplay and humor
+ A fairly open way to play
+ Many, MANY different gameplay styles
+ Amazing DLC (So far I have played Dead Money and Honest Hearts, the supposed worst of the two. I loved them)
+ Good performance on low-end pc's.

Bad things this game has (-):
- Buggy. Get the patches, even the unofficial ones from modding, because boy can this game be glitchy.
- Fairly bland story
- Questionable game design
- Bad power curve. (early game on hard / legendary difficulities is nigh impossible, lategame becomes piss easy)
- Crashing. Bethesda's Fallout / Elder Scrolls Engines have never been stars, but this one has a tendency to crash if something goes horribad in the overworld. Mostly fixed with certain mods.
- Inconsistent.

Yet I would still recommend this game wholeheartidly. The quirks, the humor, the mods and the random tendencies of the game make this a great experience.

Also; if you're running a windows 7 or higher version and can't seem to be able to run your steam copy of the Fallout 3 game, there's a mod called "Tale of Two Wastelands". This mod requires some know-how and some tweaking, but if you manage to be able to run it in the end, you will have Fallout 3 (GOTY or not, doesn't REALLY matter, but it's optimized for GOTY) and Fallout New Vegas running in the same save file, you will start in FO 3 and can switch by the way of a train to FO NV.