Recent reviews by Chaderlen

I cannot recommend a game with an unfinished story.

ARE YOU SERIOUSLY TELLING ME THAT SOME GAME CALLED "IT TAKES TWO" WON THE GAME OF THE YEAR AWARD IN 2021 AND NOT PSYCHONAUTS 2?!

THAT GAME IS STANDING NOWHERE CLOSE TO THIS MASTERPIECE OF A TRUE PLATFORMER WITH A COMPELLING STORY ABOUT OVERCOMING INCAPACITATING TRAUMAS AND FINDING A NEW SPARK TO LIVE ONE'S LIFE. AND WHAT WAS THAT GAME ABOUT?! ABOUT A STUPID DAMN COUPLE GOING THROUGH A DIVORCE WHILE BEHAVING LIKE TWO LITTLE BRATS.

MUST BE THE WRONG TIMELINE...

Great co-op game with terrible code in it - the worst issue that I've been experiencing constantly is when the game freezes, it FREEZES THE WHOLE PC, which requires power cycling. Here is what the official support offered to a player in regards of this issue:

"- Update all Drivers for your PC - such as your motherboard, GPU drivers, network drivers, etc. Outdated drivers on any components are a common cause of many issues
- Verify File integrity - Right click the game in your Steam Library > Properties > Installed Files > Verify file integrity.
- Delete the content of the the Arrowhead Appdata folder - you can find the folder by pressing Windows + R and then typing "%appdata%"
- Disable or uninstall software which interferes with or alters the normal process of your PC, such as software that includes 'gaming modes' and 'performance optimizers', and programs such as Hamachi, Overwolf, and VPN software.:
- Reinstall the game completely.
- Adding the string '--use-d3d11' to the launch options of the game directly is a possible fix for some (usually lower-end systems), but may make it worse on others, in which case you should change it back."

Seems like deleting the folder helps, but it can be a temporary fix...

P.S. NOPE - new patch just came out and the game started to freeze my PC again. I deleted the appdata folder and verified the integrity of the files, but it did not help. Deleted the game 🪦

I know how to play guitar thanks to this incredible game, I think it's got really useful interactive lessons.

It is rather expensive though; however, it can still be cheaper than what other guitar-teaching platforms can charge.

P.S. I've started to learn bass with it as well! It's so fun!

P.S.S. Taking off the pink glasses, of course, the game isn't perfect: what I am lacking most is music theory here, so I need to go elsewhere if I want to learn it.

UPDATE 2026: BECAUSE THE DEVS HAVE ABANDONDED THIS GAME, I CANNOT RECOMMEND IT ANY LONGER - CHECK OTHER NEGATIVE REVIEWS FOR MORE DETAIL. MY ORIGINAL OPINION BELOW.

A super immersive asymmetrical horror game!

The game really shines when you play with friends, and you can do it as both sides. Personally, I enjoyed playing as both Family and Victims - it was often easier to play as Family, and I escaped as a Victim only once (so far).

If you are tired of Dead by Daylight, give this game try - for example, I found it really exciting hiding in the bushes from the Family during the night while slowly crouching towards an exit - this game helped me recover the feeling I lost long ago when I just started playing DBD.

Now... after such an opening, where to begin... I think I will simply try to list here all the things that have amazed me about this game! Please note, however, that this review is solely about the singleplayer game (story mode), as I've not been compelled to try multiplayer (yet...):

• The Beauty of America. From the first minute in, I've been mesmerized by how beautiful the nature in this game is: the Rockstar team did an incredible job in creating a vibrant and realistic world for a player to be in. This game is rich in both flora and fauna, and it has been a pleasure to come back to this world over and over again.
  
  
• Horse Riding and Interaction. As much as I enjoyed riding Roach in the Witcher 3, that was just a demo compared to what I can do here: you can tame a wild horse, you can bond with your horse, you can feed your horse (with different snacks that improve the health or/and stamina), you can pat it, you can brush it, you can customize its look and what not! Riding from point A to point B has never been so engaging for me in any video game as here. Given the first point, riding your trusty horse and enjoying the view has become my favourite past time after a day of work. In addition, the game allows you to run your horse on "autopilot" if you have a waypoint, and while doing so, you will watch the world around as if in a movie - sometimes, you just want to enjoy the view, and this is how you can do it. Also, you can run a horse wagon on autopilot, too, however, this is not as accurate as autopiloting a horse, and it has often led to me being thrown away out of my seat with the horses and the wagon under the bridge, so I do not recommend it...
  
  
• The Realism and Details. This game is so full of small details that if you go to YouTube, you will find tonnes of videos on this topic, and the fact that the Rockstar Team put the time and effort into thinking of them and then re-creating them in the game deserves so much respect.
  
  
• The Story. You get, I guess, a classic Rockstar story set in the Wild West - this binds the game together very well, and it even left me on the edge of my seat a time a two! Also, while riding your horse, keep your eyes and ears open, as you can stumble upon a stranger mission, and this game has plenty of them - big or small, but all unique and often hilarious in their nature. Even when I was just about to finish the game and said to myself "Ok, I do this achievement, and then I delete it", I stumbled upon a mission to help out a person who was kept captive by someone I sometimes interacted with!
  
  
• Honour system. Honour is about following the law and being a good person in general: if you do something good, your honour rank will increase, and if you do something bad, it will decrease. I think it is simply a great game mechanic and motivator: in an open world where you can do so many things, the honour is something that you can either fully ignore and simply kill left and right, or, if you are like me, you can try to always find things to do that are lawful and good. Or you can do a little bit of both - it is up to you, gunslinger! I admit that I've tried to keep my playthrough as clean as possible, so I did reload my game after I did something bad by accident. However, to complete the Bandit challenge fast, my honour dropped significantly, and I did not have a heart to put it back on the same level, as I felt that I deserved the low honour...
  
  
• Hunting (and Fishing). Honestly, I think I spent around a hundred hours hunting in quests and in the story missions, and I was never bored. With 234 types of animals, including fish, all with unique behaviour, this game entertains you heavily in this area. And you can craft beautiful (mostly) garments if you have the right materials, which is often a great reward that you can wear and always remember how much effort you put into tracking that panther.

For sure, there is way more to say about this game, and the things above are just something that I remembered to tell you about from the top of my head. So, with having written this review, this chapter for me is complete, so I will hitch the horse, holster my gun and go onto the next game in my vast Steam library - to another masterpiece collecting dust on my virtual shelf...

I first launched this game back in 2014 (I even created a badge haha), but... something was off. I assume that I was repelled by the graphic part of the game - I probably thought that playing something like this in 2014, 9 years after the release, was a waste of time, idk. Now, look at me, I completed it 7 years later - 16 years after the first release!

Why did I even come back to this title? So, a couple of month earlier, I was just casually searching for the next game to play, and I decided to sort the available games in my vast library by their Metacritic Score. Turned out that this game was highly rated, and that got my attention. I decided to give it a second try, and it was worth it - 100%. Back in the time, Metacritic Score actually meant something - it's not like it is now with infamous Cyberpunk that many critics considered "unfinished", "buggy", "raw" when it came, and in the end they still gave it 9/10 saying that there is "something for everyone in it". Maybe. Anyways, this is NOT the case with "Psychonauts". Why is this game so cool?

Psychonauts is an unforgettable journey through... several minds. Yes, there will be quests INSIDE other characters' minds! What is absolutely stunning, is that every mind is unique with their own complications that our character, a young fella, Razputin, will try to solve. I promise you that you will be absolutely amazed by each and every mind's design, quests, characters, and so on. (Milkman Conspiracy just blew my mind, and I am not sure that it ever recovered).

I believe that it's possible to speedrun the game, like, really fast, but what really takes a player's time is collectables. Oh my, the total number of all collectables scattered around the real locations, minds and what not is definitely higher than 1500. I found them all, it's achievable, and it gives Razputin upgrades for his powers. So it's worth it, in my opinion.

If you are a huge fan of platformers like me, don't miss out on this adventure! Don't be repelled by old graphics - think of it as a style of this game (and I am sure it is like this). However, if this is still an issue for you... wait for Psychonauts 2! Yes, the game is in development, and it is to hit all platforms at some point of time. And if you like it, jump right in here to see how it all began!

This DLC is just so aweeeesome!! You get to play again as a Big Daddy, you get all your weapons, all your plasmids and tonics + A NEW WEAPON AND A NEW PLASMID , and both are mindblowing (kinda literally). I believe it took me around 6 hours to finish it.

You can also get an exclusive tonic if you complete another DLC, "Protector Trials" (I recommend you to complete those before starting the DLC for more ADAM) - those are a lot of fun, especially bonus levels. They can be challenging if you are not used to trying new combinations and stuff, but you will learn how to complete the trials efficiently with some practice. The tonic that you'll get will allow your Little Sister to gather more ADAM. The trade-off is that the gatherings will take longer. But it's more fun like this, right?

Minerva's Den is a great DLC, do not disregard it if you enjoyed the original campaign.

The game is really good, it expands the story of the first game, it feels much more balanced and more dynamic (just a little bit shorter, too). It features new enemies, new weapons, new tonics, new plasmids... you name it! But also everything that I love from the first game. I do recommend you to play this game, but you should really start with the first one to understand the overall story of Rapture better.

Whoever says in their review that "OMG THIS GAME IS UNPLAYABLE, IT CRASHES, LIKE, ALL THE TIME" is either playing it on Windows 95 or on their Windows Phone, I don't really know, but in my case, the game crashed 3 times only , which is good, no? For this reason, I recommend you to quick-save as often as you can (I, for one, put default F11 on my programmed gaming mouse, so I saved easily all the time + got achievement for not using Vita-chambers).

Last thing to mention: the developers write that this game uses high resolution textures, but... it doesn't feel like so? I was playing in FullHD using almost high graphics settings, but the mentioned high resolution textures simply were not there. Not a problem for me, though! Honestly, I can play old games on low settings as long as I have stable 60 fps in native resolution (and as long as those games are really good, like this one).

The skins were not seen in the game the first 1.5 hours after I bought them, but then...

I BECAME A PENGUIN