Recent reviews by UnixAnt

No matter which character I play the experience feels exactly the same. Progression is slow and boring and the game just isn't fun unfortunately. You are given freedom to develop your character however you choose, but speed is absolutely mandatory regardless of who you play. I fell for the Overwhelmingly Positive reviews and jumped in without doing any research first because the game was cheap. More fool me...

Unbelievable bugs, right from the start of the (paid for) DLC.

I'm not even joking, my first impression of the game (once the obligatory level up had finished) was a broken cut scene immediately after the very first Inn - about 5 minutes into the game. It cut to the back of my character, with dialogue going off in the background and (probably) some animations which I was unable to see. When the game exits the cut scene and gives control back to me, I'm in the middle of a fight with no clue as to what just happened. The journal hinted at what I should do next, which led me to the nearby barn. Entering this I was unable to move because of some invisible wall, I was unable to summon my animal companion, unable to engage the enemy in the room and, to top it all off, was unable to leave the barn.

Literally 10 minutes into the game and I'd encountered 2 game breaking bugs. What on earth is going on in the NWN community at the moment?

My advice: buy NWN:EE, avoid the OC, XP1, XP2 and ALL the DLC and simply play the excellent persistent worlds instead. These, at least, have some talented people working on them. Fans of the original game who are buying back into the franchise to re-live the 20 year old memories deserve better than this.

FYI: Valve censored the word "sticks & 5k1nz" in my review below. If you're offended by the word for the "thing which lives under your clothing" then you've got issues son...

tl;dr This mess of a game is one to avoid. I played 78 hours, hated 74 of them...


I bought Valheim in 2021 after falling for the hype - "everybody seems to be playing this, it must be great!". Sadly it's not. I mean, it's probably great in multiplayer, but I don't have the time or the motivation to do that so I'm reviewing it from the single player perspective.

There are 3 major gripes I have with Valheim. The first is the incredibly tedious grind to get literally anything done. Everything up to and including the first boss is a cakewalk and quite enjoyable if I'm honest. Any progression post first boss isn't fun in any sense of the word. The difficulty ramps up at an alarming rate, which I don't have a problem with, but getting sufficiently geared up to deal with that difficulty and progress through the game is slow, tedious and totally unnecessary. Want to get the first metal tier (bronze) weapons & armour? Well you'll need to (very slowly) mine 2 types of resources first and probably in several trips because you won't be able to carry everything you need. Also, the very act of mining alerts every enemy in the forest to your location, so you'll have to fight multiple enemies with your starter items, sorry.

Say you eventually snag yourself some of the required metal ores. Do you want to build a smelter out of stone & coal? No chance mate, you need 5 of a particular item to smelt metal, which may or may not spawn in burial chambers, which may or may not have been generated near by. No burial chambers near by? Well, sucks to play on that map I guess - generate another one or build a raft to sail away to a different part of the map where you'll most likely get caught in a storm & die.

Why is it such a chore to make the first level of trash-tier weapons & armour? Having those makes your life a little bit easier post first boss, so why put so many obstacles in the way? You can't even find resources on the other side of the map and build a portal to your base, because metal won't transport through the portals for...reasons. The only sense of achievement I got from equipping myself in bronze armour was "Great, maybe I won't die as much now". It genuinely didn't feel like a tech progression from stone-tier to metal-tier - aside from now being able to cut down birch trees, that is, which was a bizarre design decision. Oak trees I could understand, because they're massive, but surely chopping down trees is a fundamental part of any crafting game? Nothing should be handed to you on a silver platter from the get go, but equipping yourself beyond the base sticks & skins shouldn't involve this much work. You can spend an entire evening just collecting items which you may or may not be able to smelt because of the random chance aspect of how burial chambers and their contents work.

The other aspect of the game which irks me is the tiny inventory space in chests. Valheim offers materials a plenty, but storing them is infuriating. You don't have much carrying capacity to spare once you have a top row of tools & weapons and some food, so you'll be making trip after trip after trip in order to build up a useful stockpile to build a base which you'll need to abandon anyway because the rest of the game is miles away, so what's the point? Individual chests only store 10 items and individual items have a small stack size, so you'll soon find that you need multiple chests cluttering up your base, which is a drag as you also need floor space (under cover) to upgrade your workbench. Rather than adding next-tier resources to your workbench to make a better workbench, you have to surround it with useless items you can't even interact with and just take up floor space. Again - a bizarre design decision.

And the final and possibly the most problematic part of Valheim, at least for me - the death loops. In my most recent playthrough, I had just beaten the first boss and spent about 3 in-game days building a large enough wooden structure to house all my junk and crafting stations in. I was outside felling a tree for some basic wood and out of nowhere YOU DIED. Troll...

No problem, I stupidly thought, I'll spawn in my bed and walk 5 seconds to my grave. Nope. I awoke from my bed after respawning and....YOU DIED. Same troll, who was now attacking my base. Respawned again, as the bed survived. YOU DIED. At this point, I turn off and uninstall the game. WHY IS THIS A THING?? WHAT DOES THIS ACCOMPLISH? It's bad enough if you die in a burial chamber, then get yourself into a death loop trying to retrieve your possessions. But to be 1-shot over and over and over at your spawn point? What a stroke of genius game design that is...

Valheim was a game that looked insanely cool before I bought it - and it does look beautiful with a really nice aesthetic, but ultimately it failed to to be an enjoyable experience - even after sticking with it through all the updates. For the amount of grind you put into it, you get very little back in reward. This could have been so much better. I've played it on and off since 2021, accumulating 75 hours and I'd estimate 60+ hours has just been grinding rather than fighting bosses, building, exploring & learning the game. I'm done with this steaming pile of crap now, this isn't for me, I 100% regret my purchase and if I never play Valheim again it will be too soon. An enormous disappointment...

Despite the frequent need for combat, I'd consider Dysmantle a very casual survival sim. There's no hunger or tiredness gauge to constantly be aware of and there's no consequence (other than inconvenience) as a result of dying. Both are subject to change in the future, however...

Yet whilst the gameplay is relaxed to the point of being horizontal, it's also compelling and well thought out. Yes, it's grindy - of course it is, but it's an enjoyable grind which is balanced really well with a feeling of progression. Everything seems to have a purpose: You collect materials to make better gear. With that better gear you can harvest materials from structures you couldn't previously destroy. By harvesting materials, you gain XP and level up. Levelling up unlocks new craftables. New craftables help unlock new areas and skills. New skills help you deal more damage and survive. And so on...

At no point did I ever feel like I was simply clicking to make a number increase. Even in this early iteration, there seemed to be a lot to accomplish and there was a logical progression from level 1 to the level cap (24 at time of review). The combat isn't just "click on a monster until it's dead" and you do need to take time to learn the attack patterns and how best to deal with different types of former humans & animals. For a survival game, the combat is quite satisfying - it's very much hands on and you'll need to master the dodge button in order to take down the faster & stronger mobs. Monsters will back off rather than simply running into your swinging weapon and some will behave differently depending on what range you are at. I like it!

That said, I've stopped playing for now, as I've hit a wall - quite literally. I can't continue any further because the rest of the map is blocked off until the game is developed more. I'm at the stage where I'm fairly powerful and I'm simply finding things to do for the sake of it, rather than for continuing the progression and discovering the back story (which isn't possible at this time). There's a lot still to be unlocked and I don't want to get burned out simply wandering around looking for every last piece of pre-release content.

I'll be very much interested to see where this goes. There is already a load of things to see & do, but I'd like to see the existing ideas improved on, such as a day & night cycle which actually matters. Increase the spawn rate of monsters during the night, for example, or make them stronger. Give me a reason to travel by day (or night) and bunk down at night (or during the day). What I'm saying is, there's plenty of scope to make an already enjoyable game really shine and I look forward to the final release.

There isn't much I can say about Grim Dawn which hasn't been said already. It's arguably the best ARPG around at the moment, which is impressive considering the age of the engine (The Titan Quest engine from ~2006). Whilst I doubt Grim Dawn will be winning any awards for outstanding technical achievement, what it does well - what it does very well, is provide a hugely replayable single-player ARPG experience with a superb loot system, excellent mechanics and a deeply satisfying class system.

This is a game with plenty of depth. 9 basic Masteries (Classes), 36 multi-class combinations, over 2000 monsters, over 6700 items, 169 item sets (offering bonuses depending on the number of pieces which are worn together) and over 1600 monster infrequent items (moster-specific loot). The sheer amount of things to do, farm and see is impressive.

BASIC PLOT
You start off the game in Normal difficulty at character level 1, progressing through several linear chapters until you unlock the next difficulty: Elite. You start playing the same chapters again, now on Elite difficulty and around level 50, until you eventually unlock the final difficulty: Ultimate. By the time you start the final playthrough in Ultimate, you will be around character level 80, which finally caps at level 100. The end game item sets usually have a level requirement of 94. Also, when you hit Elite, you suffer a -25% penalty to your resistances and in Ultimate difficulty this becomes a -50% penalty. Naturally, there are items, skills, augments, components, celestial bodies and potions which increase resistances.

LOOT
As is typical for ARPGs, dropped loot can roll with a variety of Prefixes and Suffixes, thus modifying the item further. But rather than loot being an explosion of RNG items, the loot in Grim Dawn is weighted to make the item drops appear relevant to the mob from which has dropped. For instance, if you defeat a fire-heavy monster, you're more likely to see fire-relevant items being dropped rather than nonsensical vendor trash (although this can also happen as well, it's an ARPG after all). So you're more likely to see something along the lines of "Devastating leather chaps of Scorching" drop from a fire mob rather than "Bacon grease leather jacket of Sleaze" or "Slime-covered moccasins of the Sewer". You get the idea...

CLASS SYSTEM
In terms of the Mastery (class) system, Crate have nailed this. You can have between 0 and 2 base masteries, with a base mastery combination forming a sub-class. So Necromancer and Soldier will give a Death Knight, a Shaman and an Arcanist will give a Druid and so on. Each mastery or sub-class will be capable of clearing the base game & DLC content. Of course some mastery combinations will be more effective (faster clear speed, less squishy, etc) than others, but I don't believe there is a truly useless class in the game. This means you can let your imagination run wild and just try things out.

CHARACTER RESPEC
I have over 3000 hours in Grim Dawn over 4 years and I've never felt like I've hit a brick wall with my character creation. If I'm clearly fighting a losing battle (usually because I'm lacking items or am playing badly) I can cheaply respec my characters to focus on other skills which I might have better gear support for. Respecs in Grim Dawn are accessible from the start and cheap to carry out.

FACTIONS AND THE NEMESIS SYSTEM
There are several factions in Grim Dawn and most are key to the plot and can't be turned hostile. Likewise, there are evil factions which you can't align yourself with because, again, they are key to the design and lore of the game. However, there are some factions where you can choose to ally yourself with them or turn them hostile. Once a faction is 100% hostile it spawns a faction-specific Nemesis, which is a super boss with a few predetermined spawn locations and will be a challenge to defeat. In addition, gaining favour with an allied faction grants access to their non-tradeable faction-specific items, which can fill in blanks in a character build or sometimes define the build itself.

CELESTIAL SYSTEM
Devotion points are unlocked as you adventure - usually from cleansing shrines with an item offering or by fighting mobs. One devotion point can be traded in for one part of a star constellation (a node) - of which there are many. Each node of a constellation infers some form of permanent buff and several constellations provide additional skills once their final node has been illuminated. This further enhances the character-building process.

To conclude, then, Grim Dawn is more than worthy of your time - even if you only have a passing interest in the genre. There is so much scope for character building, which is 70% of the fun for me: Finding a new item and wondering if I can base a build on it.

My original review of The Long Dark from around 2020, which I've kept below for posterity, was written after 17 hours of play time. The basic gist of the review was: "I don't like it, it's too tedious and a poor survival simulator". Since then I recently (Christmas 2024) installed the game and put a further 50 hours into it to see if anything has changed since I last visited The Long Dark. Unfortunately, despite seemingly many changes and updates, nothing has improved...

I still stand by my original assessment of the game: It's tedious, with nonsensical features and is, frankly, a boring experience one step away from being a walking simulator. After more than a decade of development, the game is still extremely shallow with not much to offer beyond the maintaining Temperature-Fatigue-Water-Hunger loop and bragging rights of "I survived for 100 days on Interloper" (Which is cool, but why would you?)

I'm not going to re-hash what has already been said below, but here's a list of the mechanics which make absolutely no sense to me. Please keep in mind I only play Survival mode.


--You can climb up and down a small rock face whilst being massively over encumbered by gear, but can't climb up or down a mountaineering rope in this condition. Make up your mind, developers!

--You can walk up extreme inclines (50-60 degree slopes) without penalty and can also scramble down sheer cliff faces if you're careful, but you are stopped dead in your tracks by a branch on the floor.

--Food and items degrade at an alarming rate. Why would my clothing crumble away to nothing in 1-2 in-game weeks when stored indoors? The rate of decay is ridiculously high, and whilst I understand the need to have a survival mechanic to diminish the quality of items over time, this implementation makes no sense at all.

--Cooking rotten food miraculously turns it into edible food. I turned a rancid fish I found in a fridge into a gourmet meal simply by cooking it.

--Starvation/Calories - If I purposely starve myself, leaving me with 0 calories in the calorie store, there is no significant penalty to crafting (which would typically burn calories). Rather than having a message such as "You are far too hungry to work right now", the mechanic is: "Well, you have 0 calories stored and there is no such thing as negative calories in this game, so craft away as normal!". What?

--Long term survival isn't actually an option, as resources are finite (or non-existent on higher difficulties). Beach combing is a thing, I suppose, but there is no long term goal in The Long Dark and everything seems ultimately rather pointless. Why am I surviving in the first place? To get rescued, one would hope, or maybe to drag yourself out of a miserable situation and become self sufficient while you figure out what to do next. Neither are an option, which makes Survival mode a futile waste of time. What am I surviving FOR? The answer seems to be: For no reason at all, aside from bragging rights.

--The difficulty jump is extremely cheap. If you choose to play Interloper or Misery, the game simply takes items and resources away from you and worsens your starting condition. It's as if the game is saying "Oh you think you're good at this game? OK, let's see how good you are with less options available to you in an already content-starved game". This isn't challenging, this is drudgery for the sake of it.

I could go on, but what's the point? I notice the developers, despite not completing the base game, released a DLC (a bit at a time and with no real impact on the survival game) and also announced The Long Dark 2. Clearly, the base game is no longer a priority.

It's not all bad, by the way. I love how the overall atmosphere and feeling of loneliness has been nailed to perfection, I love the art style and sound design and I think the environments are well-crafted. I just wish I could interact with them!

I can't help but think The Long Dark is a tragic case of missed opportunity, as this game could have been so much better.


***ORIGINAL 2020 REVIEW***

I want to like it - I really do. But The Long Dark is just unbelievably tedious. I've played a bit of the story, but mostly I've immersed myself in Survival Mode, hoping to have the freedom to attempt to survive and thrive. Unfortunately all I can seem to do, after 15 hours, is firefight debilitating conditions until I ultimately drop dead. And that's pretty much every single playthrough for me.

There's no sense of overcoming a dire situation, making the most of things and, dare I say it, managing to thrive against all odds. Each in-game day is spent bashing my head against a wall, fighting to keep warm and staying fed & watered until my energy runs out and it's time for bed. That's the entire game, rinse and repeat.

One of the things I dislike the most is the sheer amount of BS you have to endure before you can even start "surviving". For example, click on new survival game, pick a start point appropriate to your skill level and sigh with disbelief as you start in pitch darkness and in the middle of a blizzard. OK, try again and, joy of joys, you spawn during the day this time - yet, you're in the middle of absolutely nowhere and by the time you've gathered enough resources to attempt to light a fire, you've come down with frostbite.

I'm all for realism, I'm all for a challenging and unfair game, but balance this out with engaging gameplay and the hope of one day digging yourself out of the mire by virtue of making good decisions and sensible inventory management. No matter how many times I restart and rethink my strategy, by the second or third day I'm back to fire fighting afflictions all over again until I slowly succumb to the utter tediousness this game dumps upon you in droves.

At the end of the day, it's just not a rewarding game. It's a walking simulator where all choices lead to death.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I don't regret my purchase and I won't be requesting a refund. It's a game I'll keep dipping into from time to time, when I need to scratch my survival itch. But it's not quite the Winter survival experience I was looking for. The devs have nailed the feeling of isolation and impending danger. I just wish The Long Dark was more than a series of plate-spinning mini games of trying to keep your warmth, fatigue, thirst and hunger in the safe zone.

This is an easy game to bash because of the problems with the game at release. No Man's Sky in 2020, however, is an entirely different animal and the negative comments are difficult to justify. Hello Games have righted all the wrongs which plagued the launch game, have pushed out update after update and added a boatload of new and engaging content at no additional cost. I can find few faults with the game as it stands right now, mid-2020. I would urge the early adopters of the game who were initially frustrated, as well as the naysayers who seem very quick to simply say "This sucks", to re-visit NMS. You might be pleasantly surprised. Highly recommended.

This isn't the rpg I thought it would be. It's a gorgeous game and seems to be well liked, but it's not for me. I was hoping to have the freedom to develop my characters in a way that would lead to a balanced party (Melee/Rogue/Caster/Ranger) where I could take advantage of tactical combat. But no matter how many times I reload and re-think my tactics, I'm finding the combat system to be an enormous PITA. It makes no sense and I don't find myself learning from my mistakes, but rather punished for not being 3 levels higher than the enemy.

The punishing, nonsensical rng sucks all the fun out of combat. Why does my party have a cool down on skills when the enemies use skill after skill without penalty? Why does my party clump together at the start of combat, only to be picked off by AOE spells? Why is the only way to win fights is to be several levels higher than the enemies? There's no way you can go in on a level playing field and expect to make any progress. I'm a fan of hard games which force you to learn, but the combat in D:OS2 is pure drudgery.

I've given it a fair chance, but at 30 hours game time and still no better off than I was with 5 hours game time, I think it's time to move on.

Visually, this is stunning. The art style and atmosphere is top notch here, make no mistake. However, I'm having a hard time finding the 'game'. It seems to be 90% RNG & 10% running back and forth trying to make strategic decisions regarding what to build before the night comes. It's not a game you can get good at over time and with skill, but rather the entire outcome is decided by random chance. Not the game I was looking for...

GFX: ★★★★★
Sound: ★★★☆☆
Gameplay: ★☆☆☆☆

I tried to like it, as the aesthetic is awesome. In terms of design, art style and overall atmosphere I don't have a bad word to say about Darkest Dungeon. But in terms of gameplay, I simply found myself constantly fire fighting on every turn for very little reward. The stress system is a really nice mechanic but it's far too difficult to manage and keep control of and within a few turns you'll have most of your party a nervous wreck and unable to contribute in a battle. I don't mind hard & frustrating games, and Darkest Dungeon does a good job in bringing me back for another go, but I find my enjoyment soon disappears. Unless I'm missing something fundamental, I'm just not having fun when I play it.