Recent reviews by Tesko

If Starfield came from any other company, it would be a good mid-tier game. Because it comes from Bethesda, however, it has expectations on it that the game simply does not meet. It is empty, soulless, and devoid of any kind of character or special "magic" that makes it a compelling experience.

The bones of the game work. The systems are fine. The shooting and running around feels fine. The space dogfights are fine. None of it feels great, but nor does it feel particularly bad in my opinion. And the game has a lot of "content" meaning there is a lot of stuff to do, a lot of quests, places to go, etc. The problem comes when absolutely none of it is interesting. It got to the point that I was barely reading/listening to any dialog and just clicking through the options to get to the next objective. I was completely uninvested, and for an RPG, that's pretty damning. Eventually, I tried making Starfield a game I would just hop into every now and then and run a few quests while listening to audiobooks or podcasts, and even that failed.

The most fun I had in the game was playing around with the ship builder. I actually quite enjoyed running all over the systems getting all the parts and pieces I wanted for my ship and then putting it all together in a way that I thought was cool. I loved seeing my ship in game, watching it take off and land and fly about in space. But for a game about space and space travel, the ships are wholly unnecessary.

I've been a fan of Bethesda since I first played Daggerfall on a friend's computer. Then Morrowind came out and utterly rocked my world. It was so creative and open and interesting. Starfield is open…. And that's kind of it. It's not interesting. It doesn't feel particularly creative. It's very generic sci-fi without any risks taken or cool spins on concepts to make it feel fresh.

There's nothing wrong with being a good mid-tier game. Where Starfield fails is that it tries to present itself as something more than a good mid-tier game. It fails to provide compelling exploration. It fails to form a compelling story. It fails to form compelling characters. It fails to form a compelling world.

I paid $0.79 for this game and got about $0.50 of fun out of it. It's a 20 minute game that takes about 40 minutes to complete because of poor design choices, bugs, and general jank. It's really disappointing because the low poly look of the game is fun and there is a foundation here that could be expanded upon. Even at less than $1, I can't really recommend it.

I loved this demo! I was quickly taken back to playing games like the D&D gold box series or the Ultima series, but Skald does it in a way that doesn't feel archaic and obtuse the way games from that era often do when played now. What I liked the most, though, was the atmosphere! The great pixel art, evocative music, and fantastic writing brought together a great sense of foreboding dread. It can hang with the likes of Ravenloft or Castlevania!

I greatly enjoyed this game, but I guess that's not surprising given my love of both Symphony of the Night and Record of Lodoss War manga/anime. Even without that nostalgia, however, I still feel like this short but sweet game stands on its own.

My biggest knock against it is linearity. While they are interconnected into one map, the game has bespoke "stages." Each area is completed in order, and I didn't really feel like I was exploring a cohesive environment. You can backtrack to other areas once you get abilities/unlocks for weapons, spells and some upgrades, but it's all optional. You can basically complete the game quickly going from stage to stage. Some people complain about backtracking and exploring, but for me it is a hallmark of the genre.

That's really my only gripe with Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. The pixel art is lovely. The soundtrack is really freaking good. I didn't find the length disappointing. I think it lasts just long enough to not overstay its welcome. Being able to complete a game in a few sittings these days is a boon to me. I got full map completion in about 8 hours. The quality of play for those 8 hours was consistently good, so I felt good about my $20 spent. I really like this trend of short metroidvanias like this, Carrion, Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, Timespinner, and Dandara.

Update: I can't recommend TL3 anymore. I was an advocate for its success since alpha, but the developer has been bought by another company and the publisher has essentially put the game into maintenance mode. Do not spend your money on this. Go play Torchlight or Torchlight 2, they are still great games. This one had potential, but it's just a mess.

So I've been playing Torchlight III since it was called Torchlight Frontiers in closed alpha. It has been a tough road for this game, but I've been rooting for it along the way because of how dearly I look back upon the first two Torchlight games. I applauded the switch from the Frontiers model to a more traditional structure. However, I was disappointed when they pushed it into an early access beta. I felt like it was too soon, and the game needed more work. The devs put in that work, though, and addressed a lot of the issues I had with it. When the game was pushed out to 1.0, I still felt like it needed a bit more time. That's where I stand now. It still needs more time.

TLDR: If you want something to dump 1,000 hours into, you will be disappointed. If you want a lighter ARPG experience that doesn't require a lot of energy to get into, TL3 is a good buy. Beware of bugs, mine have been minor but other players have reported much more serious bugs.

I am having a lot of fun playing TL3, don't get me wrong. However, as a sequel to Torchlight II, I can't help but feel like it falls short. More than likely, I am looking at my time with TL2 with a hefty dose of nostalgia, but at the time, it felt like something really special. TL3 doesn't. This game feels like another ARPG. It's a good ARPG, but it's not something remarkable. Perhaps that's more to do with the state of the genre right now. Since TL2, Diablo III got its ♥♥♥♥ together and became a good game, Path of Exile blew up to become a massive success, and smaller ARPGs like Grim Dawn have been released with fantastic support. Torchlight III has been released into a very different world than its older brother. It has far more competition.

The core of Torchlight III is solid. Playing the game moment-to-moment deleting mobs of enemies is as fun and satisfying as one would expect from an ARPG. The system for character builds isn't the deepest, but it gets the job done. It doesn't have the wild openness of Path of Exile's skill tree and gem system, but that's not exclusively a negative. It's a lot easier to work out a build in TL3, and I feel like it's very hard to make a "bad" choice. Halfway through my first character, I thought I had chosen a bad relic for it. However, a little change in build and re-allocating skill points, and I was rocking it and having a ton of fun.

The stuff around that core isn't as solid. The game has a story. What that story is, I can't tell you because I forget about it as soon as one of the very rare minimally-animated comic-like cutscenes is done. There are "audio log" style lore bits scattered around the world, but nothing in the game has done anything to get me to care about paying attention to them. The areas within each act are very repetitive, too. Each act has a couple of tile sets and the game does almost nothing to make places feel distinct. At one point in the game, you are told to go to the "Chop Shop." Just hearing the name in the context of the world, you might think it is some graveyard of automatons with piles of broken robots and stuff. You go there and there is literally nothing to differentiate it from the previous place you came from. It looks exactly the same. It feels exactly the same.

Other ARPGs have done a lot to create interesting and unique areas, but every location in TL3 feels utterly generic, and that's sort of TL3 in a nutshell. It's a bit generic. A couple of the classes are cool unique ideas like the rail master and the automaton, but beyond that, it doesn't do much to inspire imagination. The skill system is the same. Everything in TL3 is done just well enough to get by. At least, it's done well enough for some people. Thankfully, any bugs I have encountered have been very minor, but some people are having much more serious problems, so anyone should be well aware of the potential for problems right now.

Since the beginning, my experience with Torchlight III through the alphas and beta has been one of hopeful optimism. When talking about it with friends, I'd always try to get across the idea that TL3 had the potential to be something really awesome, and that all it needed was some more time to get filled out and polished up. I still feel that was, but it is now a "full" released product. It's hard for me to be as lenient on it as I was in the past. It is not the special "buy it immediately" game that Torchlight II was. It is also not the absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that Wolcen was. It's a good game, but not a great one.

So do I give this a thumbs up or thumbs down? Despite the possibly perceived negativity of all this, I still give it a recommendation. However, it comes with some caveats. Of you are a hardcore ARPG fan expecting to put 1,000 hours into the game, you are likely to be disappointed. If you are good with a lighter experience, then you will have fun. It's a good game to play while listening to podcasts or audiobooks or with a video on a second screen. It is also a good game to play with friends while you chat. You aren't going to find the depth of something like Path of Exile, but that also means you aren't expected to put in a lot of work into playing the game. I sincerely hope the devs can expand on TL3 and make it into the great game I think it can be.

A great game for 13 year olds in the mid 90's.

The only thing this game has going for it is the fan service, and even at that it kind of fails. It isn't even a good clicker game. The upgrades are boring and uninspired. The enemy girls you click to defeat are too repetitive. The character on the right that I suppose is supposed to be you just stands there completely useless and devoid of any life or charm. Perhaps the worse offender of this poor excuse for a clicker activity is the UI. It's awful. There's nothing here except the ability to pay money to dress up a paper doll. At least with an actual paper doll you could do something interetesting with. You can't even wipe your ass with this game. I have an irrational adoration of clicker games and even I can't find anything worthwhile about this one.

Goat of the Year 2014. Goat Simulator ushers in a golden age of video games about goats.

Ask me about Loom...

A game of unparalleled grand strategy with tweaks that add much more tactical battles than in previous Civilization games. The redesigned interface and streamlined presentation of information makes this the easiest Civ game to break into.