Recent reviews by draumatized

This game is HORRENDOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw that as a fan of The Dark Pictures games. This is the absolute WORST entry in the series and it's not even close.

Is it the story? No. That's not the problem ( well, not completely ), It's the functionality. The bugs in this game are so prevalent that it causes actual frustration. DISCLAIMER I go through these games in co-op, so that's what my review will be focusing on.

MOVEMENT

The movement has always been a low point for these games in my opinion. It's clunky, it's slow, it's borderline unresponsive. THIS game brings it up several notches. You want to move your character in the opposite direction, be prepared to fight with the camera to get them to actually go where you need. Another issue I have is the game moving my character by itself. I as well as the person I have been playing through with have had this issue on multiple occasions. It's noticeably bad, and I have no idea why. It doesn't add anything to the game itself other than annoyance.

INVENTORY SYSTEM

Cool idea on paper, nuisance in practice. I find difficulty in finding adequate wording on why it feels unnecessary, but believe me, it feels unnecessary.

PROMPTS

Be fast, be accurate. There are definitely some cheap deaths here if you miss one. I got tossed off of a building because of a prompt that didn't even display itself on screen long enough for me to notice it. Context: I was given a button mashing section, and after button mashing like my life was on the line ( probably was ), I IMMEDIATELY failed a prompt directly after. This prompt appeared ON-SCREEN as a fail and I didn't even get the opportunity to notice it because it switched from a mash prompt to a tap in an instant.

LIGHTING

EXTREMELY dark if you use the recommended brightness settings. There are flashlights in the game, but they're only for your character. Your partner won't be able to see the illumination from your light source at all. Makes no sense. There's also one character that uses a camera flash as a light source. There's a reason in the story as to why there are no cell phones, so no light source from that, but still.

STORY

Not the best, not the worst. It's actually the best part of the game for me. It's been VERY tough to enjoy though as there will be times where your character will teleport to a completely different area based on what your partner is doing. And yes, I do mean teleport. Inside a building trying to find clues? NO YOU AREN'T! Boom, cutscene! Now you're outside in a chase or something!

SOUND

Credit here. I enjoyed the sounds in the game. It's more of the same from the other entries, but I suppose that's personal preference. The music is eerie, the action is a thrill, the voices are.. well, it's a Dark Pictures game.

OVERALL

Don't expect an experience like Man of Medan, Little Hope, or House of Ashes. This one feels mechanically worse than all of the games. I tried to power through, but cheap deaths ( some of which require literal guessing ), bad story selections, and finding that it's a chore to play had me end this game from the task manager.

I hope patches can fix this.

Sigh...

I want to like this game. I really do... Sadly, that's just not feasible at the moment. I've given this game ( in its current state ) numerous chances, but the bugs and glitches persist. That's the worst thing about this game, the bugs. Let me be perfectly transparent in saying that I've mainly played the co-op mode, and that's where the bulk of this has been happening. That being said.. I was also hosting about 90-100% of the time, which leads me to believe it's a game problem and not an internet one.

Examples:

• Got stuck in a bite animation at the same time I killed a zombie. Had to quit the session to continue.
  
• Combat is fun, but too often I'd have issues with what seemed like hit registration.
  
• Co-op partner has often been unable to pick up items across multiple sessions.
  
• Spoiler: Unable to progress through the door in pursuit of Barney after the Herman fight

The story is a bit meh so far- it's enough to keep your interest, but not enough to overlook the amount of bugs in the game. Disclaimer: I haven't beaten the game as of now, and it's been a rough ride attempting to.

The games performance is.. questionable at best. Sometimes it'll run like butter, and other times it'll run like cottage cheese. I ( and my co-op partner ) have encountered SEVERE lag spikes at the exact same time, and both of us should be able to run this game without issue. We're both using the DLSS, Quality option with raytracing off. These performance drops seem to start at the same time and end at the same time.

The parkour feels good overall, but there are times where things feel a bit " floaty " and I find myself overshooting things. I'm not too proud to say that this couldn't boil down to user error, but I've played a lot of the first Dying Light, and things felt much more crisp there.

Bottom Line:
Dying Light 2 is a game that has a LOT of untapped potential. The fire is there, but in its current state it just doesn't capitalize. I do hope the devs. can fix the issues that plague this title, as Dying Light is a series I've grown to favor. If the performance issues and the bugs can be ironed out, then this title could net 8.5/10 and above, EASILY.

This game is one of the worst good games I’ve ever had the chance to experience. Let me elaborate. The game itself as far as story and horror elements is solid.

Then you have the annoyances.

Let me start off by saying this game doesn’t hold your hand. At all. To be honest, that’s not a bad thing, but it can be misleading at times.

There are multiple bugs that are known throughout the game, but that can be fixed AFAIK through an unofficial patch.

Some of the game over screens I’ve gotten felt like they were there just for the sake of killing the player, but that’s more of an opinion than fact.

This game has FPS style combat at certain sections, but the aiming feels odd as if it suffers from horrible deceleration or something.
It’s not impossible to play though, just something that may require getting used to.

The “ running “ in this game doesn’t feel more than a power walk. There’s two movement speeds that I’ve seen, the default and sneak. Sneaking is so slow that I found myself just shooting through any stealth section.

Pros

• Atmospheric
• Attention holding narrative
• Fluid movement
• Weapon variety

Cons

• Glitchy
• May require 3rd party software to work as intended
• There’s a known bug with saving
• No windowed mode by default ( use DxWnd )

I do NOT regret playing this. The game itself has all that it needs to be top tier, though the issues with the port sadly overshadow much of that.

Without issues: 8.8/10

With issues: 5.5/10

If you’re fine with modifying a few files, then I recommend this for at least one full go around.

TLDR: Follow the PCGW guides to fixing this game and it’s worth the time.

Fun co-op and the Untold Stories DLC is entertaining.

I'd recommend this game. Even if you're not a core Resident Evil fan RE5 does well in catering to fans of action/adventure shooters.

Game can be done offline, but I find it really stands out with a partner.
I recommend!

I've been playing this series since the 90's. I first started with the directors cut of the original Resident Evil and I've made my way through the times. If there's a Resident Evil I haven't played ( due to not owning the necessary equipment ) then I've more than likely watched others.

I've watched the movies, both live action and cgi, and I've started listening to audio ( thanks to BigFox on Youtube ) of the S.D. Perry line of books.

Now on to the review, I can kind of understand how some people may believe this game isn't completely faithful to the original, but to be frank, I enjoyed it. Yes, it has its flaws and yes some of the iconic locations from the original aren't really implemented in the way a lot of players would've hoped. Despite this, it did a decent job of holding my attention for my first run. The game isn't super long but it also wasn't ( imo ) as short as it's been made to seem.

I'd say one of the lacking parts of this game ( SPOILERS )

Would be the absent nature of Nemesis. A lot of his encounters are scripted boss fights, and it strips the real time stalker type of feeling that you get when Nemesis arrives.

All in all, I'd recommend this game to core fans of the series who want the experience of the " re-imagining " but I won't say it's for everyone.

Resident Evil 2 classic is a legendary game and this new version, this new... re-imagining of that game has done it nothing but justice.

As an enormous fan of the series, I'm happy to have this in my library and to have been able to enjoy it. There's enough content to warrant at least four runs and that's main game content alone. There's also a few extra modes to run around in if you're up for something different.

I'd recommend this game.

P.S. Aim for the fedora ;)