Recent reviews by opscomm

I want to start off this review by saying this is a fun game. It looks great, seems to run reliably though I do have a relatively high end PC, and is very reminiscent of Endless Legend with a hint of some improvements from Humankind in there. But the game has some issues. I already have two completed games under my belt with less than 10 hours of gameplay, and at least an hour of that time is me doing work as I had the game open on my personal computer in the background. That simply is not long enough in my opinion for a 4X game.

The early game is fun, but the map seems to open up much too quickly and the AI is not able to take advantage of it. It doesn't expand, often seems to declare really pointless wars where I just march into their territory and start sieging it for free, and doesn't feel like it can compete well. This was on the default difficulty setting, so perhaps the higher difficulties will pose more of a challenge, but the game feels like an Early Access title. I don't mind providing feedback because I really hope Amplitude is able to knock this one out of the park, but it needs work. If you are looking for a complete title, I would come back in a few months.

Played the game for about a month here and there after it came out, but it always felt like a slog and like something I was doing out of having nothing else to do. Add to that the boring characters, bland main character, and lack of engaging story line and I just can't recommend. Haven't played since December because I can't even be bothered to patch the game again since every patch is for some reason dozens of GB of data for very small change logs. Get it on sale if you really must, but there doesn't feel to be anything super special about this one.

This is a game which really needs a middle ground between yes and no. I pre-ordered this game years ago as I enjoyed Endless Legend and am a big Civ fan, but when I got the game I was underwhelmed. I completed one play through and promptly forgot about it. I came back and picked up the DLCs when everything was on sale a few weeks ago and found not much has changed about the game. The early game is a lot of fun, the late game is just a slog dealing with stupid AI who is overly aggressive no matter how many wars you win, a pollution mechanic which makes so little sense there is an option to disable it, and a tech tree full of meaningless garbage you can't build because you are too busy constructing yet more districts to manage your overpopulation issue.

The game also has serious pacing issues, so you reach the late game incredibly quickly if you are doing well, meaning some eras can end within 10 turns of the start. You can reach the final era while still in the middle of Era 4s part of the tech tree. This is not really good or engaging design, especially when it can take 10 turns just to get the money to upgrade or build the new units.

It is a fun game at the start, but the start is very short and the better you do, the faster it goes by. Get the game when it is massively on sale, its fun enough at times especially if you just want something to do in the background. Don't get it at full price though, it isn't worth 50 bucks.

I got this game for 7 bucks on sale because it has been a while since I actually touched any Need for Speed games. The last one I played a lot of was Need for Speed Hot Pursuit from 2010, which was a really fun game. This game is just an exercise in frustration for me. The open world sounds cool until you are driving around it constantly dodging cops who spawn out of thin air after two races. The cars drive alright until you get to the S+ cars, then every car has a serious fishtailing problem when you attempt to do fine course changes to try and avoid cars. The AI seems to have no physics at all attached to their cars as they can careen around corners stuck to the road like glue at 200 mph, where I have to brake only the brakes don't work, and neither does the steering, so I go driving off the map. There is also the issue of crash detection, as at high speed if you touch a small pebble or a fly the game resets you instantly. This game was fun for a while, but I have no desire to finish the story because every race is just an exercise in frustration. Get it on sale if you really want to experience it, or better yet go play 2010 Hot pursuit or some of the older games.

I played 77 hours of this game in early access, enjoyed every minute of it, and was more hyped for a game than I have ever been. The full release has been even better than I expected it to be. The story is compelling, every character you run in to has some kind of story behind them. This is the world every table-top DM wishes they could put together. There are no pointless fetch quests, there are no boring side-missions. Every quest you do has a permanent effect on the world, changing the kinds of quests you run in to in the future.

I've been playing video games since 1999 when I was six years old, and this is hands-down the finest game I have ever played. It's a masterpiece and it belongs in your library. I never thought Larian would out-do themselves in regards to Original Sin II, but they have.

I've had this game on my wishlist for a few months now and finally got it during the sale. I was looking forward to a singleplayer Dayz experience, and what I got was frustration. I spent 45 minutes in the game running around the world getting murdered by zombies constantly after finishing the tutorial because the melee system is very clunky and broken. Hits don't register when I'm swinging at zombies right in front of me, almost everytime I dodge roll the game fails to go back into melee mode when I press for it the first time, and the zombies hit like trucks. I don't understand the need for the melee mode to exist in the first place when you could just press mouse 1 and everything would be easier instead of having to hold mouse 2 and click mouse 1. There are also little to no healing items anywhere, and the game lacks an easy way to craft them. There are all these clothes I found but none of them could be turned into rags or bandages. I hope this game turns around because it fits a niche I'm looking for, but right now I can't justify it even for the sale price of $12.

Game has severe optimization issues and is very grind-heavy. Having to learn so many basic crafting blueprints you need a few minutes into the game before you can even use them seems silly. This looked like a nice version of PVE Rust, but you have to spend almost an hour playing before you can even build a basic house. Also using a torch at night drops my fps into the teens when it is 40+ the rest of the time. Dissapointing.

Like so many other people I waited a very long time for this game. I heard it had some problems, but was willing to give it a shot. Let me list out the issues I ran into in this game after a few hours of playtime.

-The story-
The story in this game completely fails to draw me in. I am supposed to want to get off this planet to help a whole bunch of other cryo-frozen colonists when I as the player am given no other reason to other than this guy needs help and I am supposed to care about a bunch of ice cubes my character may or may not know but have never been shown in game. I am dropped on a world with no real enemies to speak of outside of random bandits who want to kill everyone.

-The characters-
In cutscenes, the characters have some personality, but as soon as you get into the game, all personality seems to go out the window. Everyone stands stock still like a cardboard cutout and there is no emotion being shown on their faces. Back in 2010 with New Vegas that was fine because of graphical limitations, now it just makes them look one step above Bioware face.

-The Gunplay-
I know this is an rpg, but even Fallout 4 had better gunplay than this. The guns feel clunky even with a character who has high dex and weapon skills. Maybe I'm just used to how guns handle in shooters like Destiny, but when your shooting somehow feels like it is from New Vegas in this day and age, thats a problem.

-The Graphics-
I was running this game on almost max settings with an RX 580 8gb, 2600x processor, 16 gb of ram and a fast mechanical hard drive and the game would run a solid 50-60 fps, except when I got into the grass, where it would drop like a rock. Lowering the settings didn't seem to help at all. The rest of the visuals look fine, but at the same time feel out of date somehow. Maybe it is the lighting or the cartoony atmosphere, but it seems to turn all the immersion I am trying to have back off when the story starts to get going somewhat.

Overall, the game just feels bland and uninteresting. I could forgive the gunplay and visuals in a heartbeat if the story and characters were engaging, but they fail completely to draw me in. This is one of those games where playing more of it feels like an obligation to give it another chance because I've already bought it rather than because I want to play more. Buy it when it goes massively on sale, otherwise save your money for something better.

Good story, good characters, enjoyable exploration. Overall a solid game. My system is a Ryzen 5 2600x, 16 GB of ram, and an 8gb RX 580. Using latest drivers I had no issues, game averaged about 50 fps on high settings with a few things turned down to medium at 1080p. No stutters or major fps loss for me. It is very much worth the money.

I purchased this game after enjoying the previous Doom game in 2016 immensely, it is one of my favorite shooters I've ever played. I waited until a few days after release to purchase it so I would have some time off work to actually play the game and also so the steam reviews would have enough time to get a large sample size. I bought it expecting another high octane shooter that would allow me to relax but instead I purchased a frustrating game with a non-existent story, poor map design and encounter layout, and overly complex mechanics that make the game feel like a slog. I kept playing it, not realizing I had gone over the refund time because I was trying to force myself to enjoy it. After three hours of total playtime I came to the conclusion this game was too different from its predecessor for me to find it entertaining