Recent reviews by Difficulty Tweak

Given its early access state and at the time of writing and based on the five currently available chapters, Peripeteia is an 8/10 game brought down to probably like a 6/10 due to its early access nature. There is a very solid foundation and in the levels that are tight and polished (Tutorial Arcology, Memorial Tower, The Chasm and Belgrade/Reclamation) the game is an absolute treat to play. It doesn't hold your hand at all and while it does give you a direction to go in, you can absolutely just ignore it and ♥♥♥♥ off for like three hours in the massive levels and discover things on your own.

That being said, I said the game gets brought down to a 6/10 because while the game *does* permit you to sequence break and do things out of order, the actual game itself doesn't have enough checks and balances in place to determine what the player actually has *done* so far. Example: In Mission 5 (Karabash, which I think is currently the weakest level in the game) you are given multiple options for how to get to the next town. Your options (that i'm immediately aware of) are to take finagle your way into getting the train moving again, taking a ferry across the water to the next town, or just walking on the train tracks. The game guides you to do the train, but I decided to go for the ferry, and when I got to the next town I wandered around and spoke to a couple merchants and had dialogue options asking about a note, who then went on to say it was probably from some communist agitator. Naturally, I was confused, as I had received no such note, and I wandered up to the train station, where said agitator immediately opened dialogue with me and handed me the note. In that same town I was trying to side with the PSR over a guy trying to claim he was a descendant of Stalin, and he glitched out and disappeared at some point before I could bring the PSR's deal to him, forcing me to then side with him, turning the PSR hostile in the third town. I had situations like that all around the game where there wasn't some sort of dialogue check or something the game did to make sure I was actually on pace with my surroundings, and as a result I just ended up confused and disoriented a lot of the time. Solid and fun idea, needs a lot better execution on that front.

There's also a lot of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up level geometry in general. A couple spots on Reclamation I straight up went through the walls to see inside the map (didn't glitch out! the playable area just let me do this) and there are other things like the tanks on The Chasm glitching out separately from the main bodies (this was really annoying to deal with). Also, the way stealth works is very obviously inspired by Thief, but I think due to art direction and the way levels are lit, it's hard to tell what's actually a "shadowed" area at times.

Reclamation is IMO the best and the worst level in the game. It's probably best compared to The Library from CE, where after a point it just kind of starts grating on you despite the very fun concept. Threw me for a loop and I immediately knew what was going on the second I couldn't save normally, but from the school all the way until I found Kacper (who I missed in The Chasm, but had dialogue acting as if I had patched him up) I did not find ANY save points, and given the shortage of ammo and health I was stressing significantly about getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by the Wardens or the Dolls.

Overall, really solid game, but I'd keep an eye on it as it gets worked on in early access.

walking into san celeste and recognizing the intro area from mafia 2 is the moment that i decided hangar 13 should receive one billion dollars for this game

Compared to Mafia 1 (DE, anyways) and Mafia 2, Mafia 3 is derivative as ♥♥♥♥. It's got a million different Ubisoft open world collectathon ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ things with it, a ton of mechanics from previous games were stripped out (police escalation -- a traffic violation warrants a death sentence in New Bordeaux, apparently, and don't hand me that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about the cops being bought out by Sal, because they were bought out in Mafia 1 too and they didn't gun you down on sight), vehicle customization, and the general way of progressing through the story. Not to mention the absolutely braindead AI (seriously, I played on hard and the AI basically never reacted when I shot someone with the Silentium, meaning stealth was boring and obnoxiously easy.) Other ideas like varied police response times depending on the neighborhood you're in (rich/white or poor/black) are neat in theory, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful in execution, same with civilians running to the phone. One could be close enough to spot any crime you commit, but far enough away that you won't catch them before they run to the phone, and the next thing you know there are five cops on your ass in ten seconds. The police system is generally miserable and the AI are retarded -- I saw at least 40 civilians dive directly into the path of my car to then get run over and killed, leading to a call to the cops.

It so desperately wants to be a Far Cry game and that comes with all of the resulting baggage of open world fatigue.

That being said, this is still a positive review because I found the story to be quite enjoyable in spite of the massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that is the game itself. John Donovan easily embedded himself with Joe from Mafia 2 and the Definitive Edition Paulie as one of my favorite characters in the entire series. The character writing is very strong and the story is decent, and while I used to turn my nose up at the story for what I perceived to be "woke ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" when it came out (mostly because I was young and stupid), I've long since come around to it and Lincoln is an interesting enough protagonist.

joe barbaro gets kicked out of a diner for being racist

swarthoid simulator

this is the most 7/10 game i've ever played

pcGODS... we WON...

Gundam Breaker 4 is a thing now. There is no reason to buy this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ anymore.

do the wagie waggle as you watch your friend charge into a sentry turret with a sign and then get shot to death like a dog in the street

i have a primal urge to kill