Recent reviews by Yarry.

What a gem. I have been waiting for the release of this game ever since the demo was launched during Next Fest, Keep Driving is a beautifully crafted masterpiece that delivers a lot of polish for this comfy roguelike experience with many interesting characters and scenarios.

The pacing of the game is fairly relaxed but delivers a good amount of challenge in a turn based manner as you traverse from village to town to city to being surrounded by forest or coastal highways and everything inbetween. Along your journey you may find the odd hitchhiker keeping you company on your journey to your destination. Whether the person you picked up is a benefit or a drag is up to you to find out, it's like they say never judge a book by its cover.

If you're in the market for nice 8-bit-esque pixel graphics akin to the Sega Genesis era and the nostalgic feeling of going on a roadtrip that never seems to end, then this game is for you.

man.. this game takes you places, much like how polished Yakuza 0 was as an "entry" to the series (as it's a prequel that was developed after the original version of Yakuza 1 was released), Yakuza Kiwami is given the same attention to detail as the previous instalment, following the plotline from the original Yakuza 1 but with the same amount of polish as Yakuza 0.

what was nice to witness in this game was to also experience the development of the game world as some things in the prequel's plot line and era have decided Yakuza Kiwami's outcome, in essence what the prequel did was explain the history between characters and the state of the world quite well, leading into this game with a decent amount of backstory to navigate the intricacies of this franchise.

in terms of game mechanics, the fighting can feel clunky at times, boss battles can be somewhat frustrating to get through but with some perseverance (and enough leveling up), with time, these encounters become less of a challenge and to be honest the fighting mechanics are very good given the age of this game.

it's also a very well optimized game to run on potato-tier hardware, somewhat of a staple for japanese video games it appears.

overall a very good experience, at times it's less of a game and much more about putting yourself into the shoes of your main protagonist and to do what's right by you and your (in-game) family.

P.S.: In case you haven't played Yakuza 0 first, I suggest doing that before getting into this. Also, consider playing this with a gamepad instead of mouse and keyboard.

do not read up on anything about this game, don't watch playthroughs, don't look up wiki entries before at least the first playthrough of your own.

regardless of how pixelated and simplistic the graphics are in this game, what this game does exceptionally well is storytelling, character development, world building and replayability. From the first encounter to the last, you learn so much about compassion, friendship, love and determination. This game has loads of it built in, I never thought I'd get an experience like that out of Undertale, I'm glad to have been wrong.

the journey takes you far, the people you meet and interact with along the way vary heavily in their characteristics, this game covers a lot of ground within several playthroughs, and it does it so well.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone who wants to explore video games on a personal level, one where every nook and cranny has been cared for deeply, paired with the beautiful music score and selection of ambient noise in various stages, hats off to Toby Fox for this gem, it's simply incredible.

Playing this game is like eating a good dish, you long for some takoyaki served from an Osaka-native's food cart, in the heart of a busy (fictional) district in downtown Tokyo but follow it up with a sake bar visit before going into the nearby telephone club for some arousing conversation.

This game is filled to the brim with content, it's astonishing how SEGA managed to put all of that into the measly ~25gb worth of game files. From the storyline advancing from one chapter ending cliffhanger to the next, to neverending side quest shenanigans and straight up craziness, seasoned with a plethora of mini games, this game can easily be 4-5 games by today's video game standards.

I picked this up during the Chinese New Year's sale but this game is every bit Japanese excellence like you'd imagine, painstakingly detailed world building aspects, character development, 4chan-levels of stupid yet hilariously put together side quests and a storyline that'll keep you engaged throughout the entire ordeal.

Yakuza 0 is without a doubt the best entry to any lay man or woman into the Yakuza franchise, the bar is already set so high up early on canonically, I can only imagine maintaining it is a herculean task for SEGA. (although granted with this game being a prequel the order of releases and canon is a bit off as there were Playstation 2, 3 and 4 titles before; but the Kiwami remasters is where its at, or so it seems based on the many, many video game blogs reporting on this franchise)

In terms of fighting mechanics, they definitely feel a bit dated for today's standards, at times it feels like maneuvering an aged version of the fairly young protagonists, certain mid-punch cancelling actions don't work as expected and if one's not too careful with the timing they end up being abused like a ragdoll for a few moments during a fight. But as the game progresses and you're able to buy better abilities, it tends to undo most of these flaws. In general the fighting is implemented quite well, albeit can become all too repetitious given the number of "random encounters", kinda like in Pokemon. (especially when you reach a point where fights don't pay as well as the money tycoon mini games)

Aside from the fighting there's also a boatload of mini games along with businesses you can tend to which help with generating huge profits, either done actively or passively; either of these money tycoon mini-games has its own charm along with a dedicated plotline that turns them into more than just a mere side feature to the main act.

Overall I can definitely see why this game has such high praise (and the occasional meme-tier review), it strikes an intriguing balance between dramatic storyline, memorable characters, great gameplay and some of the funniest and most awkward side quests I've seen so far in video games yet. Keep in mind though that picking this game up is fairly addicting, so if time is not a commodity you currently have freely available I suggest going through this game during the holidays or every few days.

It's a brilliant game with smooth gameplay (excellent hitbox mapping!), beautifully crafted pixel-style cinematics and an intriguing plotline progression.

Dave's development from a scuba newbie equipped with a dull harpoon, to a seasoned deep sea diver armed to the teeth with various firearms feels rewarding. In particular, I like how Mintrocket combined 2D and 3D elements to make for a coherent and gorgeous scenery in both the diving and restaurant tycoon parts of the game. (and some fan service paying hommage to various well known video game franchises without going overboard with the references, nice touch)

Speaking of the restaurant management, it's not tedious in the slightest, in fact it's nice seeing dishes push the daily earnings to new heights after each day of diving. Boss fights feel more and more challenging, each defeated boss netting you a special one-time ingredient with which a high-payout dish can be cooked with.

The plethora of characters that end up getting in touch with Dave each have very unique characteristics and make for funny conversations, powerful allies and challenging cooking competitions along the way.

It's a fun game, just beware that you may go on a long winded binge playing this game, it's that good. Can't wait for more Mintrocket developed games down the line

[This review is in regards to "Fallout 4 GOTY version", I highly recommend that edition vs the normal one]

Is this game a Fallout's Fallout? - Not quite.
Does it "feel" similar to what you enjoyed with previous title? - Somewhat.
Did things get better or worse? - Depends on what you're looking for.
So.. Is this game fun? Oh absolutely.

Ever since the launch of this game, I didn't think I'd be interested in getting to play this instalment. After coming from - in my opinion - one of the best titles to this one, Fallout New Vegas, I didn't think too much of it.

Initial reviews pointed out the deviation from the original style of gameplay the Fallout franchise catered to:

• a somewhat less gripping story line, with almost abrupt endings and some loose ends
  
• a more dumbed down dialog system with reduced impact of various SPECIAL stats during speech checks (this is now only affected by the Charisma stat with a random chance at succeeding which can be "cheesed" simply by saving before the check and then reloading the save game. Kind of lame but so is the mechanic.)
  
• generally less of an RPG feel compared to being more of an Action Shooter, thanks to the improved gunplay in cooperation with ID Software (the makers of DOOM)

And while those arguments are true and it's sad that it's less of a classic RPG and swerves away from Fallout's bread and butter gameplay, it doesn't stain the reputation of the franchise. Quite the contrary as it showed a lot of quality of life improvements which were often a critique of the original games.

• Junk has actual meaning now in the game thanks to crafting. Junk items can be scrapped down into their primary materials and used for armor improvements and weapon modifications, which has pushed the versatility of equipment to the maximum (and it's also used for the Settlement crafting, which is nice)
  
• as mentioned earlier the gunplay is absolutely top notch, the gun animations feel very satisfying and make for an effective impression when using the firearms in the game
  
• the addition of robots just takes the versatility of your companions to a whole new level, robot crafting enables you to take a mechanically actuated pack mule disguised as a death machine with you on your every journey and make enemy confrontations a cakewalk (unless of course the whole town is trying to get a piece of you)

As much as I liked the crafting, the settlement management and the "infamous" settlement assistance secretary Preston Garvey (which apparently was patched out in later updates to the game) isn't necessarily my cup of tea, it is nice having the option and of course your mileage may vary and it may even be a killer argument for you to get this game.

All in all, I believe it's a good game, much like how Splinter Cell Conviction deviates from the Splinter Cell genre or Hitman Absolution from the Hitman genre, I don't discount this game as one worthy of your attention.

And as stated above, please get the GOTY edition. It comes with 2 full length expansions - Far Harbor and Nukaworld - AND it adds the Automatron missions and robot workshop. (at the time of writing this review it's 10 bucks at a sale, I got a lot of playtime with this game and I have a feeling so will you.)

If you truly want to play this game, then get it on a sale with a healthy discount.

Don't get me wrong, it's an OK game for what it offers; a polished version of an old classic from around 20 years ago, enveloped in a modern packaging, with a revamped hand to hand combat system, the addition of cover shooting and some light stealth mechanics, which play well with the nature of the game.. but at the same time missing much of the essence of the original as it got lost in translation.

The remaster follows the original's plot quite well, all main aspects of the "template" are included with a bit of artistic freedom and adjustments here and there. Somehow though, it's not as... complete as one would like. Certain gameplay sections and side missions were left out in favor of high quality cutscene sequences, character development arcs that existed in the original version simply didn't make the cut, because who is Lucas Bertone anyway?

The characters look way more cartoonish than they used to in the original, taking away some of the serious tone the original game came with, I was astonished by how some of the cutscenes managed to be less involving than that of it's 20 years older counterpart, you'd think with the technology and manpower of today's video game studios this would be an doable improvement.


But the worst offense of them all - by far - is the difficulty.


This game actually made me load up the original version from time to time to answer the question: "was it really that hard back then?!". And truthfully - while some aspects were certainly hard in the original game - one such occurrence being the infamous car race, which garnered a generally negative reputation among players and fans of the original version - the remaster, however, took this problem to a whole new level..

The game graciously offers die hard fans the option of playing the game on "Classic" difficulty. Not thinking too hard about it, naturally, I picked said difficulty for the classic experience. Since this game includes gamepad support I played it accordingly, eagerly loading up the first few missions and playing away. As the missions progressed into more and more shooting sequences for the rest of the game, it became quite clear that using the gamepad was not a favorable idea, being forced to use the kb+m for most of these missions henceforth. The frustration was amplified by the fact that enemies turned into bullet sponges in the harder difficulties, at times requiring up to 6 hits to the chest as they rushed towards your position guns blazing, with each of their hits dealing up to 60% damage to your health bar.

However, as bad as the shootouts were on the controller, the cherry on top of this sundae is the driving, and it is absolutely aweful. Every car feels like it takes forever to get up to speed, cars either understeer like crazy or oversteer into a spin, almost like moving on ice all the time. This effect is magnified whenever there's rainfall, rendering taking corners an impossibility. (Remember the car race I mentioned earlier? Even if you played it on "Extreme" difficulty with Damage enabled in the original, it was nowhere near as bad as the remaster.. 1.5 - 2 hours of playtime were sacrified on reloading that race start checkpoint, as a fan and player of racing sims, this implementation of car mechanics and RNG events that take you out of the race is a travesty.)

So in the end, we get a gorgeous looking landscape, a more lively city with the addition of more pedestrians and more pronounced weather conditions and cutscenes that have been given a lot of time and dedication.. at the price of the gameplay, janky AI mechanics and unbalanced chase sequences, making checkpoint reloads unavoidable.

This remaster could have been so much more but chose to be yet another streamlined third person shooter, and while that's not that bad of a thing at all, it's also not a standout title given the original version's reputation.

This is the continuation of the Splinter Cell storyline after the events of Splinter Cell Double Agent, the plot continues right where the PC version ended after Lambert's death. (spoiler if you haven't played Double Agent yet).

Now is this game a faithful continuation of the Splinter Cell series? Not really. After the events of Double Agent, Sam has turned into a ruthless killer out for blood. Delicate map exploration and humorous interrogations are off the menu, fast paced action, anger filled interactions and explosions fill the scene.

Does that mean this is a bad game? Not necessarily, I would put it in the same realm as to what Metal Gear Rising is to Metal Gear Solid, connected yet different. More in line with action games at the time of development as well as even those that are released today.

The map design of the levels is satisfactory with nicely varied terrain that allows for different approaches in each playthrough. In general the maps are adequately sized (not too big, not too small), with as little "fat" as possible.

Sam's slow and careful movement set as seen in the previous games has now developed into an arcade-y almost super human level of athleticism; he can scale walls, climb around pipes and railings in record speed, he can even smash through certain types of doors.

In addition to the boatload of varying firearms in this game, Sam can also use a variety of gadgets to help him outsmart his adversaries in each level. If all else fails, hand to hand combat can also be applied for some swift justice.

Regarding the lights/shadows dynamic or the sound level: these aspects have also been reduced due to the change of pace in this game. You're either in the shadow and safe or out in the light and exposed. After enemies detect you, your last known position will show up as a semi-transparent silhouette in the game. This mechanic offers a wide range of options on how to outsmart your enemies as they close in on your bait.

To conclude this review: I wouldn't see how this would compare to Chaos Theory and prior titles at all, apples and oranges really. Personally, I see Splinter Cell Conviction - and its successor Blacklist - as a different arc as to how the previous titles played out, one that would potentially appeal to gamers new to the franchise and maybe even turn them into fans of the series around the legend that is Sam Fisher.

This game is the very definition of "rough around the edges", and even that is putting it very lightly.. this is how you ship a game without having a quality assurance department verify the product during development.

Playing this game - or more accurately this version of this game - requires a lot of patience, diligence in troubleshooting bugs and readiness to use workarounds to have a somewhat functional experience. I have had so many occasions where the game just straight up crashed either mid game or during a loading screen, spontaneous save game file corruption and relentless amount of physics related glitches and game breaking bugs..

Ubisoft has not only proven that they didn't give a damn with this release, they actively neglected it. Following this release - more accurately version 1 of this game - Ubisoft has released a different version of this game - Version 2 - which feels like a night and day difference to this one; Version 2 is only available for the Playstation 2, Xbox 1, Gamecube and Wii, effectively leaving the PC audience with the inferior version.

The fact that they didn't bother porting version 2 to PC, being so much further into the future from back when it released in 2006, makes my head spin, who knows what a more positive reception of this game would have caused for the Splinter Cell franchise.. (they probably wouldn't have stalled Splinter Cell Conviction as far into the future as they did...)

It's pretty sad I haven't even used a single paragraph thus far to describe the gameplay itself... unfortunately even that aspect was rather "mistreated" when you compare it to Chaos Theory or Version 2.. heck Version 2 effectively IS Chaos Theory 2.0, it's a majority of things that Ubisoft has perfected, of which most aspects were cut out of Version 1...

• The light visibility aspect was dumbed down, instead we have a detection meter (green = not visible, yellow = caution and red = you're detected, extremely simplified)
  
• the noise level which was introduced in Chaos Theory was effectively removed (NPCs still somewhat react to sound I guess? but it's not worth a mention..)
  
• the interrogations.. the heart of Chaos Theory, where we got to learn about Sam Fisher as a person, have been reduced to a minimum, leaving very little space for the creativity of Mike Ironside's playful humor to shine through

Instead what we got were a handful of minigames which were repeated throughout the game, minor interactions with important characters, a lackluster plot progression and NPCs whose faces do not change expression as they are either put into a headlock, interrogated or even as they are being choked unconscious.

And on top of ALL THAT.. they walked away from the opportunity to implement a kick ass soundtrack that we came to enjoy with Chaos Theory, which was all thanks to the incredible work of Amon Tobin.

This game is a disgrace for the Splinter Cell franchise and unforunately also the last time we had a Chaos Theory-esque experience before the Conviction-era took over, an absolute bummer for the stealth/espionage genre as a whole.

If you've read this far and truly want to play this game regardless (I finished it to have a more complete picture into how Splinter Cell Conviction started), I suggest you look up the patch files for v1.02b, the widesceen fix from the pcgamingwiki and make SURE to save multiple times throughout the game and expect random save game corruption to occur.

What happens when you take a legendary video game classic, take its plot and re-package it with up-to-date gameplay, stunning visuals and an intelligently intertwined map layout?

You get yourself a Game of the Year. A well deserved one at that.

This game is just so well made, it blows the original version out of the water.. Gone are the fixed camera angles, the stop and aim action, the clunky movement controls and the less than serious and rather funny voice acting.

The zombies sound effects and behavior feel more like the "real" thing, the voice actors of the main characters fit the characters MUCH better than the original rendition and the cutscenes are gorgeous. The weapons sound like actual firearms, the facial gestures of the characters are spot on.

Last of all, Capcom did an amazing job at optimizing the game for older hardware; I have managed a solid 60fps even with something as old as an Nvidia GTX 970, absolutely smooth.

This. This is how you develop a remake. Thank you Capcom.