Recent reviews by Mudbill

hopefully controller support soon

Honestly short and sweet, I liked how detailed and packed with content it was in a relatively small space. That said the bunker is probably larger than you might first think. It certainly was to me. Took me about 5 hours to complete. It was frustrating at times, but not a bad kind of frustrating. Overall a very enjoyable game.

Despite being Early Access (at this time), the game feels very polished. It's an atmospheric and cozy game where you build yourself up from nothing; crafting tools, hunting animals, building a house, and defeating enemies. The game does little to guide you – you're only tasked with defeating bosses once you are ready to do so.

There were a few things that took me a bit to understand. Perhaps you could call them "quirks". But in the spirit of exploration, I will let people figure this out themselves. Overall, very nice game. I'm sure the further development of this game will bring interesting things.

People do not do this game justice. First-timers generally recommend this game. Those returning from Amnesia - The Dark Descent, the prequal, generally do not. There's of course something to note about that fact, but it does not ruin the game if you've got the mind to follow the story of Amnesia - A Machine For Pigs.

If you loved ATDD, you may have mixed feelings about this one. It is not like the other, so be aware of that. Many game mechanics from ATDD are not present in AMFP, such as inventory and puzzle items, sanity drain or oil for your lantern. Therefore, if you have high expectations of this game being like its predecessor, then you will join the group of people who were disappointed. If you, however, try it for what it is, I think you'll enjoy it.

This game focuses on telling a narrative story. Most of the time you spend in this game is done venturing through the story at your own pace. There are notes to read if you would like to delve deeper into the story, which I highly recommend. The story is by far the best part of this game, however it can be very difficult to follow if you don't try. It's written like a poem, and should be interpreted as such. There are many metaphors and "ye olden" English-styled conversations from the Industrial Revolution period, so if you heavily disliked English class, you might struggle. Nevertheless it is an incredibly deep and wonderful story for those fortunate enough to embrace it.

Some say they spent 4 hours through this game. My first play-through I believe was 8 hours. Obviously I was going very slowly through it but if you rush, you will miss the details that make it good. Take your time with it. It might not be for you if you're of the impatient type.

Story, music, atmosphere, and narration is all excellent. There isn't much of gameplay though, as it's mostly just walking through this journey of a story. Think of it as an interactive movie. That's my advice. It's definitely not for everyone, so if this fits you, give it a shot. If not, well, you should know yourself.

1. I get that "Competitive Mode" is the main focus of the game (and I have no problem with that), but the other game modes should get some love as well. Not too long ago there was an update to Arms Race, which made it far from better. The wallhack handicap you get while top scoring is a poor way of balancing good players from bad players. It simply makes anyone less motivated to actually do good, as it hurts you tremendously. You'll often find yourself better off being 2nd, until you snatch the knife kill right before the top guy because he's too busy being wallbanged.
   As for "Casual Mode", well, it's a mess. Don't really know how you can fix this though, it seems far beyond repair, and I doubt it's something people want changed, despite having a popular hater-base.
   
   
2. There are a couple "quality of life" updates needed in my opinion. Small things that don't impact the gameplay, but rather makes it more convenient to do what should be simple in the first place. These mostly include bugfixes that are probably overlooked and forgotten. For example when inviting a friend to a lobby, the context menu should be player-specific, not index-specific. If the player you want to join changes position in the list between the first and second mouse click, you end up inviting the lucky fella who took his place.
   Another example which I thought would be gone too quick for me to comment on is the demo/GOTV bugs. Since a recent update to make them 32-tick instead of 16, they've been rather terrible to say the least. Viewmodels turn black upon a planted bomb in some cases. Enemy player models stutter around like crazy certain rounds. This might be impacted by the fact that I've set cl_interp to 0, but it did not happen before the demo update. These issues also occur in Overwatch.
   
   
3. The amount of cheaters have been lowering lately from what I've experienced, but they still occur. Obviously it cannot be completely removed just like that, but there are some things that should be looked into. For example "boosting" with a cheater. Sometimes a cheater will join a competitive game with a friend or a dummy account. This prevents the rest of the team from kicking the cheater, because you need 4/4 yes votes to do so, which he will not accept. There should be a way to counter this. Just throwing out this idea here, it might be stupid: How about a "report" button with a severity option? If you choose to report someone as a severe cheater, their case will be prioritized and hopefully looked at sooner. To avoid people abusing the feature and rather use the normal "suspected cheater" option, it could have a penalty for using without certainty.
   
   
4. This is more of a "be aware of this if you aren't already" sorta thing, not a suggestion for a change. If you live in Europe, you'll be very prone to playing with people who speak languages completely different from yours, which will be a problem. The famous "Russian" hate is probably the largest case of this issue. I have no issue with Russians themselves, but they do seem to be within the majority of people who do not understand that others don't understand them. Prepare to be called a syka blyat for not living up to their expectations. However Russians are far from the only people who do this. Without listing the entirety of European countries, just know that no matter where you or they are from, if there's a lanugage barrier, there will likely be conflicts. This often ends in griefing and many other unpleasantries. If you can behave, hopefully yours truly can as well. One can only wish.
   
   
5. Smurfing is definitely an issue, and whenever there is a sale on the game, there will be another "smurf season." The better you get at the game, the less you think of this as an issue, and perhaps you're more tempted to do it yourself. I rarely encounter smurfs anymore (around the LEM rank), but I know it was awful in the lower ranks of Nova when I was around there. Don't know if it still is as bad as before, but I doubt anything has changed. People like unfair advantages, and exploiting the ranking system is a simple way of getting one. In the end it's just people trying to have fun. It's fun for the smurf, but they mostly ruin the game for the other 9 people in the match. The opponents will be demotivated to continue the game by getting destroyed over and over, and your teammates might stop trying if you simply take all the glory for yourself. Of course, if someone manages to beat a smurf, they're more likely to be more motivated than ever, and beating one definitely is a good lesson to learn about skill, but I still think it's wrong to pick on the lesser people for your own enjoyment.

1. I wish Valve could focus on fixing the other game modes rather than only competitive. It may not be a huge deal, but appreciated. Plz no arms race wallhack plz.
   
2. Fix yo bugs yo! Some minor and major issues are way overdue and should be fixed sooner than later.
   
3. Cheaters need to be dealth with, but it looks better than before, so thank you for that!
   
4. Language barriers are difficult to deal with if you live in Europe. My only suggestion is to use English, but that's entirely up to each own, if they are even able to.
   
5. Smurfers be smurfing. Beg for mercy or submit.

Good thing they removed the paid mods. I have changed my review from NR to R. Here's the original review:

If you think this will make mods more awesome, think about this:
Mods have always been awesome, and up until now they've been driven by reputation and respect, something that will always give better results than money ever will. If someone aspires to achieve something, they'll get farther than someone who does it for money. The lust will bring out the dark side, because who would intentionally make crappy mods if they get nothing out of it?

I love the concept that modders earn respect and honor amongst the community. You'll get more loyal fans that way.

When money's involved, it encourages users to not only steal mods and sell them like an open black market, but put less effort into it and produce more and more smaller mods that they may sell for a couple cents each.

Adding to this, the whole 75% to Valve and Bethesta is absurd and you should be ashamed of yourselves to claim anything more than 10% total. You do no work to earn anything for the content.

I believe it's time for ModDB to rise again.