Recent reviews by Clovis

Prior to making this game, Asobo Studio spent 10 years adapting children's animated movies, and it shows. Innocence never challenges your thinking or complicates your feelings, despite presenting itself as though it would.

The dark subject matter earns a 17+ rating, yet this is a basic adventure story that moves from one plot point to the next with no pause for character exploration. How does all the violence impact Amicia and her little brother Hugo? Innocence clearly wants players to sit with this question, but gives them nothing to actually chew on. In the end, all is well; there are no physical or psychological consequences, despite repeated and ominous warnings that there would be.

From a gameplay perspective, it's even worse, and this is the reason I can't recommend this game. It's simply boring. The guards are boneheaded, blind, and quick to forget nearby murder. The puzzles are easy and tedious. Skill upgrades have very little impact. Resource management doesn't matter because the game throws at you the precise resources you'll need for the next challenge at every opportunity — and it knows what resource that will be, because it will have designed the challenge in such a way that there is no other option.

You are railroaded at every turn. Unlocking new abilities does not lead to interesting synergies or combos, because levels and fights are restricted to using those latest skills, and often penalize you for trying anything else. Then, in the final boss, the opposite occurs — you cannot beat the cartoon villain by using any of the abilities you've learned throughout the game. You must use only the basic attack. It's honestly a little bizarre.

This was a a spoiler-free adaptation of the review on my blog[musings.klovys.net].

Excellent game you can play alone, but better with friends. Pros and cons:
++ Excellent building mechanics
+ Land and sea exploration are fun most of the time
+ World feels genuinely threatening until you get endgame gear
+ Eating food is a bonus, not a requirement you must meet at all times even outside of combat
- Lack of endgame content
- Mining ore, especially Iron, can be quite grindy.

On that last point, once you've reached the 3rd or 4th biome you may realize the grinding IS the main gameplay loop (if you want to progress and fight bosses). For me, that eventually killed my enthusiasm for playing the game outside of creative projects. The main reason I have so much playtime is that I really enjoyed building.

One of the most replayable and well designed games I've ever played.

It's exceptionally balanced and features plenty of variety between characters and runs to keep you coming back, plus incremental difficulty levels that will truly challenge you.

And if you go into it with a preexisting love of roguelikes and card games, Slay the Spire is basically crack.

Top notch game, worth the purchase.

Pros
+ Excellent story; by the end I was stunned by the sheer scope of it
+ Probably the best female player character in any video game I've played
+ Machine combat is unique and exciting

Cons
- Facial animations can be a little wooden
- Performance is not bad, but not great
- Story, while good, is slow to pick up

650+ hours on GOG and mobile.

This is not the same Gwent that you played in The Witcher 3 other than the basic rules (you and your opponent take turns playing one card each, and you must win 2 out of 3 rounds to win the game).

Everything else is better.

+ Genuinely free-to-play friendly. The game showers you with rewards. You don't have to spend money to build a collection in reasonable time.
+ Gorgeous card art and animated premiums. The best of any card game in my opinion.
+ Unique gameplay and deckbuilding. No health pools. No mana.
+ Very limited RNG. Skill and deckbuilding are the way to victory.
+ Rotating seasons and events. Provides variety and new cosmetics if you get bored of the ranked ladder.
+ Excellent voice work. Really contributes to the flavor of the game.
+ Based on Witcher lore, which is better than Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, and League of Legends lore. Come at me.

- Netdeckers. At high ranks, 9/10 people just spam the best decks they find online. But that's an issue in all card games.
- Lacks cosmetic polish of big-budget productions like Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra, like interactive voice lines and intro animations. However this is being actively worked on (e.g. last update introduced new visual effects for statuses).
- Gwent is difficult to get into, or so some people claim because it's so unlike other card games. But if you've got half a brain, it shouldn't be an issue.
- Not TW3 Gwent. For some, that's a problem. But TW3 Gwent was too simple and not at all balanced for multiplayer.
- Nilfgaardian scum.

It's a great game. Give it a shake. It's free, after all.

It's one of those rare sequels that succeeds at building upon everything that made the predecessor great, in the process creating something wonderful. The visuals are beautiful and the soundtrack is stirring, the movement is SO tight and rewarding, the combat is fun and there are numerous customization options that help the gameplay stay fresh and diverse even as you become familiar with all of the base mechanics. Then there's the story, which is simple yet bittersweet, effortlessly pulling you into Ori's world of spirits, fey creatures and the timeless war between life and decay. Undoubtedly one of the best games I will have played this year.

It's soccer with rocket-powered, flying cars and a ball that explodes when you score. While rewarding to play as a newbie, it also has massive room for skill and creativity expression. What's not to love? Play this with friends.

Enjoyable shooter if you like tactical play that still rewards strong mechanics, but with a pretty massive learning curve with regard to learning all the maps. 60+ hours in and I still feel like I'm a complete newb.

If you like previous Far Cry games and aren't tired of the formula, this is the game for you. Little has changed except the setting and the plot, the former being gorgeous and the latter being interesting enough to get you through to the end, which itself I found disappointing.

Co-op works well pretty well, but progress is only saved for the host, which is really unfortunate. The game also does this strange thing where it throws far too many enemies at you before you've completed a zone's storyline, to the point of irritation, and far too few when the zone's storyline is completed.

Still, the graphics, sound, and gameplay - if you like shooter adventure games - are all great. I'd recommend this game to most people looking to have a fun time.

Worth getting early if you like GT3 simracing (for the lower price in Early Access), but be warned that VR is far from optimized currently. With an i7-8700k and GTX 1080 I can barely maintain the 45 FPS necessary for the Oculus Rift's ASW feature.