Recent reviews by Balding Eagle

This game is stupidity and all manners of disgusting things condensed in a single package. And yet I'm smiling like an idiot every time I boot this game, and feel a great deal of satisfaction even when I lose a run in the most catastrophic way possible. There's so much attention to detail in everything that happens in this game, it's incredible.

It's good to see Edmund still hasn't lost his style from his other games and the Newgrounds-esque works. Looking forward to future DLC and updates already.

If you've played the original and thought to yourself "Man, the Xen levels kinda suck", then I'd suggest you to play this game just for the Xen levels.

The devs went all out for those segments, especially the final ones. Way above my expectations.

System Shock 2's legacy lives on partly with the existence of the Deus Ex and Bioshock franchises, but it is more than capable to stand on its own right even today. Despite its outdated controls, GUI and graphics, it trumps most modern titles in terms of atmosphere, immersion, gameplay and story. In fact, many of SS2's features have been integrated into modern games, most notably the presence of audio logs put in unlikely places.

I would recommend taking your time with setting up the game. The standard controls are not good. You will most likely have to rebind your keys based on which weapons/items you choose to use throughout the game, there are so many that you won't get the chance to use them all effectively. The greatest issue I had with this game is that it uses an outdated control scheme for accessing your items. A row of quick access slots, like the one featured in the Deus Ex games, would've been much better for weapon/item access.

Some of the map designs are confusing, and it can be easy to get lost in your first playthrough. Even worse, the game has a minimap function that is disabled by default. Make sure to enable it as soon as you can, it'll make your life much easier.

Resources are scarce. You will be punished for wasting them. On the other hand, the game rewards you for exploration and careful observation. Many items will be placed out of reach or carefully hidden, take your time to find them as long as you aren't under fire.

This game rewards carefulness over gung-ho, reckless charging into unknown areas. Play carefully, lean over corners, use stealth.

You will most likely get frustrated at one point or another for the reasons above and many others, but trust me, this game is worth going all the way to the end. There aren't many games that can offer the experience that System Shock 2 provides nowadays.

This is one of those games that I dismissed simply because of GFWL, which I still have issues with in several games that use it, but haven't been updated.

The redone Steamworks version runs smoothly for the most part, with some hiccups when big buildings are being destroyed. Gameplay is fun nonetheless, with a mission/activities structure very similar to Volition's Saints Row series. You will be given many, many incentives to blow ♥♥♥♥ up.

My main gripe so far is that the game will swarm you with EDF units once the mayhem starts. It might actually be justifiable to lower the difficulty a bit, because they do tend to get in the way of the fun parts of RF Guerrilla.

Shame that we may not see anything like this anytime soon. RF Armageddon was a huge disappointment compared to this game.

Okay, so, Two Worlds II. Quite the odd name there, just like the rest of the game itself.

Unfortunately, this is one of those games that suffer from the size of their project scope: the final product is extremely hampered, there are many loose ends in the game. It initially gives you the impression that it's a vast world that you can explore and find out all sorts of interesting things, until you figure out that there are many pointless/unfinished locations. Most of the dungeons are copy-pasted a lot (or rather, the whole game itself is), without much effort to make them diversified. This is made worse by the looting system, which makes the content of virtually all chests random. Very few locales/dungeons have chests with unique loot, which is extremely disappointing. Don't expect anything better from monster/boss loot, which is also randomized most of the time.

Some of the quests are interesting in terms of dialogue, but honestly, most of the NPC dialogue is boring, so you'll most likely find yourself skipping it a lot. At some points it takes jabs at common RPG/videogame conventions and tropes, so whoever wrote it has some awareness of the typical RPG designs' quirks. Including their own.

Despite the game's broad variety of courier-boy quests (yes, you, delivery man, go murder some ostriches and fetch me the grass inside their stomatchs), the game's story itself is linear. However, at a certain point in the game, the entire game becomes much more restricted: suddenly you can't teleport anymore, and you're restricted to this small area and do a handful of quests because the devs cannot allow you to leave this fenced space. Seriously, what the ♥♥♥♥? That was a huge kick in the balls. At this point it becomes very obvious that they couldn't finish the rest of the game for whatever reason.

I'm only talking the negatives here because other reviews have highlighted the brighter side of the game: I particularly liked magic a lot, and that's what kept me playing the game. Still, I wouldn't recommend it unless you were really bored and had nothing else to play in your semi open-world RPG list (think Elder Scrolls, Witcher, some of Bioware's stuff)

Well I guess this game did get me into buying real knives as opposed to virtual ones...

This game's elements just don't fit together. It feels like a chore to play.

Spec Ops: The Line has the typical scenarios that a 3rd person shooter with cover-based mechanics has, so if you enjoy that, then Spec Ops should be a decent addition to your library. It doesn't do anything particularly exciting in this regard, it's okay.

What does stand out in this game is the gripping tale of a small operator squad that find themselves in the middle of a Dubai that was declared a no-man's land. The game will remind you of how cruel war can be, with some particular scenes and levels being not for the faint of heart, reminding us once again that war isn't always a conflict of villains and heroes, just a bunch of unfortunate encounters and events.

With that said, there is something that doesn't feel right about Spec Ops: The Line. The way it tells its story doesn't really match your typical cover-based TPS conventions. As you progress, the disparity becomes even more apparent, as the game seems to have trouble deciding whether it should be entertaining you with a series of explosive, ridiculous fights, or whether it should delve deeper in the psyche of the main character. It tries to do both anyways, and that leaves some to wonder whether things should have been done that way. SPOILER: The ridiculous fights could be justified as the MC's mental instability grows stronger, as he continues to justify his actions and do his best to be a hero. That's a bit of a stretch though.

For the typical sale price, I'd say it's worth it, if you like emotional war stories and TPS games. Just don't ask questions about the multiplayer, it's dead and sad.

The only reason I played this game was because that it was included in a bundle.

Playing this game will give you a valuable lesson on project management, as Day One seems to be a comical case of a project gone awfully bad. From missing sound assets, really odd-looking rendering/lighting, and an overall vibe of "I can't be bothered to finish this game", Day One will leave you with an everlasting impression of emptiness, an idea that never became whole.

I want to get off Garry's ride.

Don't buy this game, even for laughs, the dev doesn't deserve it.

It's one of those games where losing and starting over again is part of the fun.