Recent reviews by L13HolyUmbra

Before playing this game, I was in a bit of a funk with video games as a hobby. I think this was a combination of having less energy/time for hobbies as I got older, getting disillusioned with the games industry and the monotony of AAA games, and a bit of depression overall. Regardless, lots of new games I thought I'd like or should like either bored me or couldn't keep me engaged and wanting to play more. Everything I played just felt like a slog.

Then, when I finally got around to this game, I felt, for the first time in a looong time, genuine joy from a game. The kind of joy where you enjoy every minute and want to play all the time, even when you have other things to do. I can't even remember when I last felt that.

Despite the fact that I normally don't like rogue-likes, this game hooked me immediately, engaged my full attention, and masterfully provided that "just one more time" feeling that I've missed from games of old. I am not exaggerating when I say that this game reminded me why I love video games.

10/10

I am a self-proclaimed Bethesda fanboy--I have an Oblivion tattoo and my hours on Skyrim and Fallout speak for themselves... So it is with sadness that I have to say I can't recommend this one. This game is Fallout is wearing a No Man's Sky costume for better or for worse. For me, it is just too uneventful, repetitive, and clunky while also losing that sense of wonder and charm of exploration that every other Bethesda game (except FO76) has had. The word soulless feels a bit harsh, but we are certainly not far away from it.

For those of you who are familiar with Bethesda and love their games, I imagine waiting and allowing for enough mods and DLC/patches (I hope) to come out can help this game reach it's full potential... And perhaps at that point, if you are desperate enough to find something to scratch that Bethesda specific itch, this game might be the only answer. If you somehow have avoided Bethesda games and are looking at this game as your first... don't. Play Skyrim, Oblivion, FO3, FO4, or Obsidian's New Vegas or the Outer Worlds--all of those fill the same FPS RPG niche better.

I tend to write pretty long reviews and explain my reasoning, but with this game there is no need. If you like fantasy and RPGs get this game. Plain and simple. It's literally the best RPG to come out in at least a decade. The only one that even comes to mind as a fair comparison is the Witcher 3 and I think this tops it in many categories.

I mean the fact that they took it off Steam tells you all you need to know right?

I'm not a big sports game or basketball guy. I enjoy both from time to time, but I am out of element here and bought this to simply re-live some of the fun I had on consoles once upon a time. BUT I should have known this was too optimistic when I discovered the cash grab freemium-inspired online trading card system they ran...

Either way, I did have a bit that fun while I messed around with the grindy, pay to win mycareer mode which got boring when I could only control my player. Then I decided to draft my own team and began to understand the game's mechanics and it's flaws a bit better. As a result, this game brought back a nostalgic video game rage that I haven't felt since my CoD MW3 days. An impressive achievement to be sure. Not a good achievement, but an achievement nonetheless.

Maybe this game is simply somewhere between okay and not good. Maybe I just suck. It's likely both. Either way, I'm not sure if the net outcome of the hours spent was a positive one on my life. At least I have the same number of working controllers that I had when I started...

Final score: 5.75/10.

Terraria IN SPACE. If you think you'd enjoy exploring a randomly generated solar system with aliens, strange planets, and random science labs run by sentient apes performing human experiments, recruiting a crew, and building your own settlements then this is the game for you.

Final score: 9.5/10

Fallout 4
[TL;DR at bottom]
I am a huge Bethesda fan. That's what I said until a few weeks after the release of this game. Since then, I've said I'm just a fan and this game's release marks the beginning of the disappointment Bethesda has become over the last 8 years.

That said, this is a decent game worth some of your time. This is mainly because it's hard to not enjoy a game that employs the core mechanics that made Fallout 3 and New Vegas fun: the unrestricted ability to explore and collect garbage and guns to your heart's content in a quirky, alternate history post-apocalyptic wasteland via an FPS-style RPG. Exactly what the doctored ordered.

The content in terms of places to explore, items to collect, and quests to complete, especially when compared to the tedium offered by other open-world games is nice. The story is interesting enough, despite some predictably and head-scratching directions that things are taken. It is also good to see they expanded upon the good things NV brought to the table with crafting, gun upgrades, and improved companions. The base building system can suck away a ton of time due to the frustratingly buggy implementation but can scratch that Terraria or Minecraft itch even if it feels like it is through 3 layers of clothing. Settlements are also a neat idea with a bit of entertainment value even if they end up feeling a bit like your mom is giving you weekly chores after a while.

Despite all of that though, it feels like this game is missing something that FO3 and FO:NV had. It's hard t9 pinpoint, but there is a certain charm and personality missing. I think it's partly because of the meaninglessness of conversations with NPCs due to your character build no longer really affecting your choices and personality. Everything ends up being a choice between ask a question, yes, yes but funny, or no but I'll be back later to say yes. It's not enough to kill the experience, but I'd certainly have a lot more hours if the choices were more diverse.

TL;DR: Not the best single player Fallout game available, but a fun time nonetheless especially for the current price if you've not played this one before.

Final score: 8.25/10

[TL;DR at bottom]
This game is hard to rate because one can easily bias their score if they consider what was promised and what was delivered at launch versus looking the game  on its own merit. I will do my best to ignore my preconceptions, but it is difficult.

Inherently, this game isn't as horrible a game as some made it out to be. It certainly has its high moments with cool setpieces, a solid soundtrack, and good acting from some of the side characters. The main story, while shorter than I would like and not as responsive to player choice as expected, has interesting ideas, likeable characters, and memorable moments worth experiencing--even if they were interspersed with some admittedly cringy dialogue courtesy of Johnny Silverhand and V. The side quests can range from awesome to yawn-inducing with the boring, repetitive tasks diluting the game map and hiding some of the great ones. You have decent, albeit easy, FPS combat that provides fun moments but eventually loses it's joy due to hollowness and repetitiveness becoming apparent as you progress and realize the skills/perks/body mods/weapons aren't all that important.

The world itself looks good and could be interesting and fun, despite the minor graphical glitches I experienced, but it feels like it is missing substance. The same few loud, annyoying in-game ads found everywhere and lifeless NPCs littering the streets really illustrate this and bring the immersion down. You cannot think of this as an open-world game since your ability to interact with your surroundings outside of quests is non-existent with the exception of 2 cheap sex scenes from joytoys and a metric $&+@-ton of useless vending machines. Additionally, the driving feels tedious and unresponsive, despite some cool cars, and is never something to look forward to. And God forbid if you ever get in trouble with the all-knowing, teleportation-powered demigods known as cops that will insta-kill you faster than you can say 'sorry'. This is a hub world that you are meant to quickly travel through on your way to your next quest and not one you'll want to explore.

My biggest complaint, though, is the awful inventory system. There are so many useless clutter items that it is almost unusable: I never needed to use food or drinks, the crafting system is more tedious than most fremium mobile games, and I'll never understand the choice to provide users with the untold number of cloned clothing items and guns with ever so unnoticeably improved armor or damage ratings like some evil, boring version of borderlands.

Overall, the good moments are evened out by the bad or boring, bringing this game to a meh--a frustrating outcome for a game with so much wasted potential and promise as the next great open-world game. Anything unique experienced here isn't worth the investment and I can't give this a positive reviewas a result. I'd much sooner recommend you spend your time more wisely with games like the Witcher 3 or Fallout 3, NV, or 4.

TLDR: Some good moments, but lots of wasted potential and frustrating/boring mechanics make this game not worth the investment.

Final grade: 7.25/10

[TL;DR at bottom]
If you can't tell from the amount of playtime I have: I love Skyrim. It set the bar for last-gen open-world first person RPGs and has the uncanny ability to scratch whatever fantasy RPG itch you may have. It is power fantasy escapism at its finest.

There's just something about that feeling when you customize a character and begin a new adventure that no other game has been able to recreate. There's an indescribable satisfaction to planning a character's looks, playstyle, and story and knowing you'll have the freedom to go off in any direction you want to follow those plans without things being dictated by a main storyline you must follow.

Sure, you can follow the main quests related to the Dragons (which are good) and have plenty of fun, but the beauty of this game is that you can also ignore that and blaze your own path to become the vampire leader of a group of assassins or a werewolf in charge of the mages college or just a guy who likes exploring caves and builds a nice house...or all of the above. All within a massive, beautiful landscape-punctuated by a great soundtrack-that is ripe for exploration and delivers a smorgasbord of anything you could want from a fantasy RPG with everything from dungeon crawling to potion making to lythanropy.

But that's not to say that a game this large doesn't have its flaws. For me, the biggest might be the shallow mouse-click-heavy combat, which may especially frustrate those looking for something challenging to master, as increases in difficulty just mean more damage to you and less for enemies. Additionally, the base game's graphics, especially with NPCs and the specific minor details in the environment leave something to be desired. There's also still an array of hilarious or frustrating bugs, even today.

Luckily, this game has one of the most active modding communities around. The in-game mods supported can already alleviate most complaints while also adding cool new stuff, but you can do an absurd amount of stuff more if you are willing to put the time into modding this game using the 3rd party modding communities and their tools too.

TLDR:
If you like RPGs or Tolkien-esque fantasy stop reading this review and get this game.

Final grade: 9.25/10

One of the best rpg games in the last 10 years...9 years later and I still get the urge to play it every now and then.