Recent reviews by Glycerin Ghost

TL:DR; Bring friends, more Outlast, no microtransactions.

Outlast Trials; for those who liked visceral gut wrenching violence in your face. An atmosphere seeped in mania and immorals. Now, you are one of the test dummies (Reagents) for such a program to cure-convert you into another member-weapon for the Outlast machine. That's basically the throughline plot of the multiplayer game. Run through trials, face your fears and complete your therapy. Ultimately designed to strip you of your inhibitors to carry out heinous acts and obey without resistance or remorse.

While you run these trials, you'll come across past Reagents (Prime Assests) who failed the program. These are more your main villains complete with "quirks" and some assemblance of character that can be had in glances as you run away or get yoinked out of a hiding spot. Sadly, there are only three and any backstory is told in documents found in the levels you can read back in the lobby.

With the main story beats out of the way, the gameplay really is just Outlast with some extra features like traits, perks, & equipment with some item pickups throughout the level (trial).The pickups are straight forward and are useful from bottles for distractions, healing items, & lockpicks to get more items. A standout is the antidote for when you've been hit with gas that causes hallucinations of horrible things and jumpscares. The traits (Prescriptions) range from passives like sliding, carry more items, more health, better stamina, etc. Perks (Amps) are a bit more interesting as you can only have one of each category with slippers for silently walking on broken glass to hiding heals you. Equipment (Rigs) ranges in usefulness but ultimately relies on how you want to interact with the world; self healing, stuns, blind mines, barricading doors, x-ray vision, jamming electronic traps. Each with their own upgrade tree. All of these items are purchased with tickets earned from completing trials.

Your downtime between trials is an open apartment lobby where you can customize your room, your character, read documents, purchase upgrades, to more silly but neat features you can play with other players like chess, a color word game, pong, & arm wrestling. Neat little things to make the world feel more alive outside of the trails.
Yea, that's it. That's the loop. It's not a bad one mind. For my experience, I only played a handful of levels with other players (random and sometimes a friend) but I managed to solo the entire game on the easiest difficulty. Thus brings to difficulty and time sink.

This game was designed for co-op. Period. If you wish to do what I did, it will take patience spanning at least an hour per trial on your first run as you figure out where things are and what they want you to do. The trials themselves are based in a set location, no randomized tile generator. The random element here is the enemies & items that spawn in. Aside from the main villains, there are some smaller fry with quirks like gas, fire, or just big burly naked psycho. So it comes down to avoiding them, find the quest item and bring it back to a certain point or pull a level to have a really gory finale. It took me about 20 hours total to "finish" every level on easy and eventually see credits, all solo. I don't recommend this.

My final praise for this game; NO MICROTRANSACTIONS! Despite having a battlepass and currency to progress the battlepass, you can access all of it and there is no real money system to pull more money for this game. You can purchase a bundle for real money with all the items listed out for about $20. No random loot. That to me was enough to convince me to spend the additional money to get the better version of the game. (Borrowing from family library).

TL:DR - Wait for sale. $7 is ideal.

A new travel destination, can only be accessed after finishing "The Bastile" and talking to Abbe Gregoire. The area focuses on the titular hospital as the central point.

Right off the bat, I must say, the devs learned from making the other areas as this is probably the best designed level. Only a few times did I actually need to use the compass. It has the shortcuts that make up a well made area, looping back to the vestal. But there are only four vestals in this area, not counting the carriage, and they are spaced out. Because this level knows you have all your movement abilities, they are also used decently for path-finding.

Enemies, there are three new enemy types, each using a different element. The standout being the Necromancer which can revive themselves and allies. A welcome change from the base game, would have been nice to see their inclusion retro-actively placed into the base game areas. (Looking at Dark Souls 2 New Game plus as a perfect time.)

Weapons; there are a handful of weapons but none of them entirely 'new'. If you've played the game, you notice a trend of claws but lightning. Claws but frost. This is to say, there is no new "weapon style", merely additional varieties of existing weapons, like Chain but lighting. I don't feel strongly about them, as I found my playstyle of Agility/Claws/Immobilization. But this does bring me to a neat find in this DLC.

Module: I only recall finding one, it was the Immobilization Grade III. Instead of doing a flat increase from II to III, this instead made it scale off Agility stat. This means it could be a straight upgrade for Agility builds or a downgrade for others. It makes it a standout mod where there is no consequence to your choices for most of them. Simply use the highest grade and it'll work. Sadly, there is only one other mod in the game, base game, that is similar, for Critical Hit multiplier scaling from Agility.

The story is...almost copy and paste. There are beats that have to be hit in every zone in this game. The difference this time is that Aegis herself is leading the story. It was a bit jarring, as she's very much reserved and told what to do for 90% of the game.

I got this on sale, saved about $3. Was it worth it...being the best designed area with decent enemy encounters but nothing that excites me, not particularly. Personally, I'd give this zone a $7 price tag. I did beat it in about three hours with two deaths to greed.

Single sentence review; Play this after Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (TOB) if you enjoyed it.

Note: Some of my information comes from Raycevick's review of the Wolfenstein Saga on Youtube, definitely check it out as it has much higher production and more information in case this isn't enough.

More in-depth, Wolfenstein: The New Order (TNO) is a direct continuation of TOB, despite being the first game created with TOB being the prequel. If you enjoyed the combat of TOB, you'll enjoy TNO. But for those who wish to jump in, the combat is above average with the uniqueness of dual wielding most weaponry. Nice kick and feels nice to mow down Nazis like a powerhouse, toss grenades back, or go into a shallow stealth element of backstabbing and silenced pistol. You can complete challenges to unlock perks such as "5 Kills with Throwing Knives" unlock "Able to hold more Throwing Knives", minor yet most are easy enough to obtain save a few with grenade kills. But if that is the only reason you're here, you will find this game lacking the hype it was surrounded by. This game stands on the human element.

Segue into the story. It centers around B.J. Blazkowitz as he travels an unfamiliar world where the Nazis have successfully conquered the world. The prologue takes you from two years after the Nazis won on D-Day and toward the end a choice is presented. This choice will alter the sub-story elements and a minor gameplay element for the rest of your playtime leaving the main story plotline intact. Despite the hero being a near unstoppable machine, he still comes across as human with the great voice acting of Brian Bloom. The people in the resistance are all flawed yet determined people, tested by this world you've only just glimpsed. Even the Nazis themselves have a touch of humanity, as even soldiers can have families and such while the main antagonists have just enough of personality that I can't call them 100% one-sided.

Abruptly, we come to the graphics side of the department. The engine is still the Rage engine, if anyone still remembers id's project while the world was waiting for Doom 4. It still looks decent yet the same issues remain such as texture popping and framerate issues. As such, some will say to download id_tweaker, a mod file that can help smooth over some issues. I myself used the file yet I still had some problems in the visual department. Cutscenes would stutter and the voice would unsync from the video. Some areas hated uncapping the frames from its native 60 FPS cap. The most glaring was black squares would appear on textures and it was jarring. These issues do extend to TOB, yet I didn't use this id_tweaker mod file for the prequel and I didn't notice anything. So for this segment, only download the file if you have noticable issues.

You know what else I noticed? The sound mixing is crap. There were times I had to turn up the volume just to hear characters or even BJ himself. The music, done by Mick Gordon himself, while what little I could hear was great, it can never be appreciated or enjoyed as the sound of gunfire and Nazis shouting muffles it. The only options for sound are "Master" & "Voice".

For those who stuck with this so far, the takeaway. If you can't find any investment or interest in the main character or even side characters, this game will be another Rage. Shallow with some cool ideas and set-pieces. The questionable audio mixing and dated engine problems do hamper the experience a bit. My score is for those who can get invested in a game with a human character with a voice. If you're the person who skips past the cutscenes and doesn't care about the characters, this is not your game. Price wise, this game is worth $30, maybe $40. The bundle with TOB at $30 is a steal in this case. This game took me around 21 hours to complete on the second highest difficulty and TOB takes around 8 hours for those who are more worried about time. Now, my 21 hours was only the one playthrough, so if you want to milk it for a bit more, you might be able to squeeze another 10 hours max looking for collectibles and completing challenges to unlock perks.

Worth your time if you want to invest in a story over gameplay.

8/10

Siege is a well polished game that is hard to pick up, difficult to master, yet rewarding for your effort. Despite all of that, I still only recommend purchasing this game on sale and bring friends. Do know, you will die a lot before you get better.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is a tactical first person squad based shooter. Sounds as generic as bread. The main draw of Siege is the "Operators" interact with the environment. An Operator is the equivalent of Heroes like many other games, each with their own distint abilities. A simple example is Sledge, an Operator who uses a sledgehammer to breach or break down walls and barriers, creating openings for your team or your enemies. I'll elaborate on that and say the "break-points" are not limited to scripted areas or spots. The only limitations is the object you're trying to break. Sledge can break anything made of wood or soft material, but he can't break metal walls and concrete. Whereas the Operator "Thermite" can use his thermite charges to break down reinforcements set by the Defending team.

I'll get to the actual "gunplay" after a brief discussion of the goal and round to round gameplay elements. There are two teams, Attackers and Defenders. Operators are Attacker & Defender specific, like Thermite & Sledge are Attacker only and "Mute" and "Fuze" are Defender only. The objective, as of this review, rotates between "Hostage Rescue", "Bomb Defusal", & "Secure Area". Each round starts with the Defenders barricading their area in preparation for the Attackers. This ranges from reinforcing walls, setting up traps and barricades, placing cameras, etc for around 50 seconds. The Attackers meanwhile are sending in "drones" to scout the area and find the objective, determining who is among the Defending team and what traps they have as well as possible points of attack. Once the 50 seconds are up, the Attackers spawn properly and begin the assault. The Defenders have access to camera points located throughout the map while Attackers are limited to their drones with a few Operators as exceptions to this. The key is intel gathering and this, as well as communication, are crucial to winning matches.

Now for everyone's favorite part, the gunplay. The game is not Call of Duty in terms of damage model, but it is close. Headshots are a one hit kill as well as melee kills. Sounds standard. Now remember when I said Operators interact with the environment, this extends to your weapons as well. So now bullet penetration is added to the mix for tactical moments. The weapon recoil is determined by the caliber size, par for the course. They have since added predictive recoil patterns so it's easier to manage but it's not the same for every weapon. These weapons can also be outfitted with different scopes, muzzle attachments, lazer sights, foregrips, skins, and usually a charm. However, these attachments have various affects on your weapon's handling. Such as a muzzle break will reduce recoil yet you could use a suppressor and hide your sound at the cost of damage or take a flash hider to reduce visibility of your shots but retain the noise level. This is all without touching peeking/leaning mechanics. With the lean mechanics, you can be prone behind a couch, looking through a hole in a barrier into a hallway with only a small glimmer of your helmet to be seen in the chaos of the room you're in. In this regard, it's a big game of hide and seek, so until you learn to recognize what constitutes as an enemy and what is just a pot plant, the game will feel brutal and remorseless.

But vision, what is it without graphics? I can't say much on my part as my PC isn't a beefcake in the graphics department. This game wants 60 frames at all costs because every millisecond counts as you can die that quickly. I went with medium settings and the game looks decent enough and I can't speculate too much on the higher ends. For reference though, I have around 3 GB of graphics memory and I only use half of it because anymore and I start to lose frames at 1080p. The colors are vibrant enough and I've not noticed hard pixels. I have seen a few artifracting instances, but nothing that immediately springs to mind. I don't want to compare this game to other shooters because you now have to take into account the amount of debris that has to be rendered on-screen at any given time, and there is a lot of it. From pebbles, bits of wood and planks, broken barbed wire, holes at several points on a wall now riddled with bullets. I will give the amount of destruction capable of being on the screen is something to behold and I wish more games did this.

I said this was a multiplayer game. And it is. The "single-player" aspect consists of ten short solo missions against non-operator bots in various scenarios using some of the base Operators and getting familiar with how the game mechanics work as well as the kits and gadgets. There is also an eleventh mission that places you in a multiplayer session against more bots similar in style to traditional PvP matches. Outside of this is "Terrorist Hunt" which has three difficulties and allows you to, well, play against bots using any Operator you have available. I'll get back to that loaded statement in a minute. The other modes are Casual PvP and Ranked PvP with the occassional event playlist which ranges from a three man squad, when it usually is five man squads, against a crafted mission not seen in normal matches like Outbreak to the new S.I. playlist which added in pick-ban phase and first to 4 points wins instead of traditional 3.

I hope you remembered that loaded statement, because it's coming back. Operators available. This is where I break down the two basic purchasing options for Siege. The "Starter Edition" is the cheapest at $14.99. The catch, you instantly unlock 6 of the 20 base game operators and get a small taste of the game...oh, and buying new Operators takes longer. The "Standard Edition" is the base game, currently at $39.99 and unlocks all the base Operators and you have can purchase new Operators more quickly than the "Starter Edition", or at a fair rate if you ask me.

There are two types of currency you can use to purchase new Operators, as well as weapons skins, Operator skins and charms. Renown, which is your basic currency earned by playing the game and is the inflated currency. Then the premium currency, R6 Credits, bought with real money. Now, a weapon skin can cost you around 9,000 Renown, which is quite a few matches if you consider you get around 270 per match. Or...you spend around $5 to get 600 R6 Credits to buy the skin. You can also save your Renown to buy the Operators for use in games and no, this isn't like League of Legends where they have a weekly rotation of Free Operators to play as. If you don't have the Operator, you can't play as them. And there are not double picks, so if your teammate picks the one character you like using, you'll have to suck it up and find an alternative main to play as.

I opted for the next step in this and at times I grapple if it was a good purchase. Buying the Year Pass. If you buy the Year Pass, you get access to THAT year's Operators and a bit of currency to spend and a boost to unlocking packs, or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ obtained randomly as you play. To break it down, if you buy Year 4 Pass at the start of the year, you will get the Operators that have come out thus far for THAT year and all the upcoming Operators a week early ahead of the people who have to purchase them individually using currency. The price point is $29.99 for the pass.

I now have to end this. Wait for a sale and bring friends. This is a fun and reward game, but keep your wallet close lest you spend too much on this games many microtransactions.

7 out of 10, premium priced multiplayer only game with more to purchase and all the problems competitive games bring, thankfully there are some community members who aren't toxic and shouldn't have apologize to their parents.

An intruiging story that only continues to pull you into the madness of the mind. As you click New Game, the man backs himself over the cliff's edge and the story begins.

A sidescroller that uses silhouettes, you are in the shoes of a man who knows not where he is or even who he is. He meets a mysterious bartender who holds his answers and his journey to self discovery begins. Avoiding disturbing shadows and solving clever puzzles, jumping at the random bumps and sounds, I found myself engrossed in the story as each chapter presents another side of the world, while the protangonist digs deeper to find out why he is here in this place.

As the story continues (trying not to spoil anything), you discover that not everyone wants to leave, not everyone wants to know how they got here. Some are too afraid and others have their minds on other things. You press on and find that there is a price to this journey. The bartender himself tells you that 'Your journey will be riddled with terror and it's not an easy one to take. But you have the choice to stay or press on.'

If you enjoy atmospheric horror, buy this.
If you like an engrossing story with twists, buy this.

I can not praise this game enough, and anymore might spoil some things. But I HIGHLY recommend it. I beat it in about 6 hours, got stuck at some really clever puzzles, but the time was well spent. At one point, I found myself dying to know what would happen next. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

For horror fans who want something besides typical jumpscares. I'm sure those familiar with atmospheric horror games, like Silent Hill will find shared ground with Neverending Nightmares.
Neverending Nightmares is about the mind of Thomas and his love for his sister, Gabrielle. In nightmares, or as I'd call this more a night-terror, people who are close to us tend to take the brute of the darkness. This "Edward Gorey" styled game is all about immersing yourself inside this bleak nightmare and the sound makes a huge part of that, so headphones is recommended (and turn off the lights and play it by yourself for more intense effects). As the nightmare continues, you make choices that can alter where the horror takes you. For better or worse, the choice is yours to make. And don't worry, if you thought that nothing was after you in this game, you are sorely mistaken. I won't divulge exactly WHAT is coming for you, but use your imagination. But I do warn the faint of heart, there are cringing moments and disturbing scenes, not quite on par with Saw, but gets close with its self mutliations and morbid topics like suicide.
If you're not paranoid, jumpy, tense, nervous when playing this game, you're probably playing it wrong or it's not your cup of tea.

Now that those remarks are done. My thoughts. I must say wait for a sale on this game, in my opinion, for as little content as there is in this, it's not worth the $15 price tag. Cut off $5 and I think that would be reasonable. The game offers very little as far as replayability, so if you like your Amnesia custom stories, might want to look elsewhere. I've spent almost 90-120 minutes on this game and I've completed everything. Granted, I've been a little spoiled and I was playing it wrong for much of that time. Which is why I say to savor this and play it like you WANT to be scared. Creeping along dark hallways with nothing but a candle to keep you away from the shadows and unerving sounds makes a very tense and slow moving pace. Afraid that if you run, you might run into something you won't be able to escape or hear coming over your own breathing and footsteps. This game sets a great atmosphere for those willing to take the steps and immerse themselves into it. If you feel like you're lost, just keep walking. The labyrinth of the mind is very easy to get turned around in, so just keep pressing on and you'll head in the right direction in this game.

Closing remarks, the game is great for those willing to dive into the atmosphere. For those requiring more action and jumpscares, look elsewhere. Bring the price to $10 and I'd definitely recommend buying it. Perhaps if they added in some other endings, this game could have some more replayability.

Now, let me start by saying I do recommend this game. Whew, now that's done, let me tell you that I was sorely disappointed with this coming from the world of Amnesia: A Dark Descent. Don't get me wrong, the storyline was great and had sinister and grity tone all the way through. A haunting ending with beautifully erie sounds to keep you on edge all the way through with your dim lantern. That all sounds wonderful and great for a game right? Wrong! I'll explain. Now, as of this review, I've yet to see a Custom Stories mode. Not to say you can't mod it for one, but still, it made the first Amnesia replayable, so you can try out all the other chilly chapters yet unplayed. Another thing, Amnesia: AMFP took away the sanity meter. Now, the first time you play Amnesia: Dark Descent, and you even look at a monster, the music and the image effects are what spook you. Not to mention the creatures running after you and you know you're toast. This game...not so much. It lost that fear factor for me in playing it. I wasn't so scared to die and run around the corner, because I didn't lose my sanity to the brink where I was seeing faux creatures trying to gnaw my face off. The terror of cowering inside a closet as an atrocious sound was ripping away at the door to your little room is lost and forgotten. Moments like this made Dark Descent scary for me and adrenaline pumping. I digress. Overall, if you're a fan of the series or creepy tales, buy this. But if you want a replacement for your Amnesia Custom Stories, don't do it.

A very great game if you like detective stories, supernatural themes, and a wicked twist. Really good gameplay for people who like story driven games, though not much in the action department. If you like to explore everything, you might beat the game in 10 hours and uncover the many mini-stories within the game. I.E. The other ghostly murder cases that aren't tied to your story but happened in the area. If not, you'll probably soak about 7 to 8 hours (not including speed runs). I enjoyed it, and I would say...it's worth about 30-40 bones. Full price, eh, not so much. If they added some downloadable content, maybe telling of other cases and stories, it might be worth a full priced game of 50-60. Don't think on this having co-op or multiplayer, this is for the lone players.

A short witty game with an entertaining storyline told through rectangles and squares. It's fun to listen to the characters thought, told through a talented voice, as you hop around from platform to platform. Not really difficult and can be completed in five short hours. Thankfully, it came with a Humblebundle, so I never paid full price. This game has around 60ish levels to jump around on, each character with their own "unique relationship with gravity". I'll let you find out. Amazingly, the music is quite wonderful on the ear too, definitely recommend you listen to the game music for once instead of playing your own music. Achievements are easy and can be aquired in the first run. You can tell that this is a console port to PC but it's all well anyways. I would tell anyone looking for a quick and cheap game to play with some story element, play this, I know I enjoyed it.

For those who love horror and are not afraid to immerse themselves in this twisted reality, look no further. Obviously best played with headphones and the lights off. Anyone who truly enjoys this game will be richly rewarded with the Custom Stories made by the community and the extra add-ons, "Remember" & "Justine". Full of gothic, grotesque, & psychological horror, this game is rated highly by horror afficionados & enthusiasts. A personal favorite and I am awaiting with much anticipation for the upcoming sequel, A Machine For Pigs.