Recent reviews by Balupu

The Definitive Edition has definitely (no pun intended) caused quite the uproar. And to be fair, I was part of the uproar, as there are great ways to redefine the Classics to modern systems (Definitive-edition-project).

However, instead of my usual playthrough of the classic version, I opted for the Definitive Edition instead. By now it received plenty of patches to be at least less buggy and look more the part.

And quite frankly, it's a great way to revisit the old games thanks to some much needed quality of life features. But first the cartoony elephant in the room:

The visual style is...complicated, to say the least. I didn't mind it to much when playing, but upon announcement I was horrified by how they massacred my boy, Tommy. Faces look just weird, and of the three games, Vice City has gotten the weirdest makeover. All this with the shiny "REALISM ENB"-vibe (anyone remember those times?) that the visuals give. Still, in gameplay it looks clean, easy on the eyes and runs well. I still prefer the original look, or rather the PS2 lighting, but that is something we might never see again.

Now, quality of life:
Most importantly, there are checkpoints now, so when a mission fails, simply restart from the beginning. All of your weapons and health are back. It really takes a lot of the frustration out and makes the overall experience much more fluent. As a GTA-pro I obviously almost never failed, but when I did, I was glad to not have to drive around the city and buy weapons.
And apart from that, the controls have been slightly overhauled, mainly the flight controls. Everyones favourite mission, Demolition Man, plays now much easier. However, the car handling can be a bit off, as it is now much more like San Andreas instead of the super arcade-y classic Vice City that let you speed to the por...film studio in no time.

While all of this does not make up the absolutely abysmal handling of Take Two/Rockstar by deleting the classic versions from store-fronts, I think the Definitive Edition is still worth a shot to revisit and personally, I'd prefer this way thanks to the quality of life improvements for a quick half-speedrun.

Finally, after many years, I managed to play The Last of Us. I heard a lot about it, but managed to stay spoiler-free for basically the entire time until I watched the series. After watching the series though, I needed to see the game for myself.

In short: It's an incredible and strong experience to play the game. Gunfights are heavy, the writing and direction is on point and the setpieces beautiful and haunting. The game has lost nothing of it's fascination, even in 2023.

When it comes to differences to the HBO series, there are surprisingly not that many. And that in itself is a testimony of the quality of the game's writing and direction. Even entire dialogues have been used 1:1 in the series, so you are sure the game keeps your attention.

When it comes to the pacing, The Last Of Us keeps you on your toes and brings in new locations and challenges just when you get tired of what you are doing. Exploration goes seemingly into action into cutscene and further.

All in all, it's a beautifully crafted game, but be aware, the hardware requirements are tough. But if you have the right equipment, you will be treated to one of the most beautiful games of 2023.

I used to love the NFS series. I still had the feeling that it's quite recent since the series went downhill, but after double-checking I realised it's already about 15-20 years ago since the last really good installment that focused on the strengths of the series. Oh Boy.

In any case, tried Heat after good reviews and was disappointed and bored from the get go. The game does nothing really wrong, but that might be the issue here. It just feels bland. Production value is high, everything looks decent and works well, but it misses any kind of "soul", for the lack of better wording.

It just feels like an AI programmed racing game. You have your racing events, "cool" side characters, bland selection of music, open-world map, cars and tuning and nothing feels like it's relevant or not seen before.

I was just bored out of my mind for the hour or so I played, and I doubt it's gonna get better. With the abundance of really good and fun racing games out there, I'd say, skip this one.

So here we are, Bethesda released another game after many years of Skyrim Remasters. The idea is great, space exploration, open-world and a story revolving multiverse ideas. All good in the end? Well, not really.

Mostly I enjoyed my time with Starfield though, but it reminded me in many ways of the good old days with Oblivion. It feels in many ways unfinished, jerky, but also quite charming with what it tries to achieve.

Good:
- Gameplay Flow once you accept that exploration is pointless
- Many ways to play as you like and become your own ultimate power fantasy (build your ship, your base, your character)
- Some really cool setpieces along the story and some faction questlines
- Most faction questlines are really nice

So-So:
- Many features are quite pointless such as exploration of the galaxy to samey looking planets
- There is just not that much handcrafted content available, especially in terms of sidequests
- Many questlines are between okay to outright bad

Bad:
- Recycling of level architecture, even in main quests
- Writing is often just bad
- Quest design is often just being a messenger. In the future communication still relies on face-2-face communication.

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But all in all I enjoyed my time with Starfield and think, with reduced expectations, it still gives that specific Bethesda-Flow when playing that makes it quite hard to let go of. However, I recommend, as usual with Bethesda, to play with some mods for quality of life changes. I used the following:

Starfield Script Extender
Achievement Enabler
No Color Filters
Undelayed Menus
Easy Digipick
Richer Merchants
Instant Scan
FOV (increased to 90 due to motion sickness)
Player Cargo
XP Enhance
No Skill Challenges
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I struggled quite a bit to get into Alan Wake. Only on my forth attempt or so I finally beat the game. Why so?

The world building is beautiful, but the first three (of six) chapters are dragging on a lot. The gameplay loop is rather boring and repetitive, the game is shy with stronger weapons, and you will mainly walk through forests and uninteresting old mines. Bleugh.

But, from chapter four onwards it starts to really shine. A much needed comedic relief comes into the game, the setting is more interesting and the gameplay loop starts to actually work, as the game starts to just give you weapons. And if you then defend an area while Poets of the Fall (or as they are called in-game Old Gods of Asgard) are playing, then you have a really good time. Chapter five is then the pinnacle of the game. Story, setting, comedic relief and gameplay loop is perfect. Chapter six falls short again, but still works.

All in all a great game if you can look past some of the 7th console generation clunk.

After the fantastic Crysis (But, can it run Crysis?), Crytek had high expectations for the follow-up. Originally released in 2011, the remastered came out roughly 10 years later and implements some updated graphics.

Crysis 2 itself is in many ways a departure from the first installment. Everything is smaller, more convoluted and the memorable island views are gone. New York city, in the midst of an alien invasion is the setting instead. And in the beginning it doesn't work at all. You will fight random human NPCs, walk through brownish streets and it just misses the point.

Around the half-way point however, the game really picks up and starts to become it's own thing. You will have received suit upgrades, different enemy types require different approaches and there is a much better flow going on. Crysis 2 gets really good!

The story, however, is a bit of a convoluted mess and doesn't really live up to it's own expectations. The game takes itself so seriously that it's hard to stay serious yourself. But it's all in good fun.

In the end, it's a short, but well designed game. The remastered adds some layers of graphical effects, so it makes the game look like I remember, but I might be wrong. It's not much of a showcase though nowadays and especially models and animations fall flat.

It's the best Saints Row game out there.

While newer installments got freakier and created more of a brand out of Saints Row, it is the second installment that takes the cake for me.

The game has a good balance of sticking to reality and real stories, while taking it up a few notches more than the more serious counterpart GTA IV at the time. This creates some really memorable missions that are just whacky enough to be taken seriously.

Apart from that, plenty to do and explore, but most importantly, the city itself is well designed. Contrary to Steelport from Saints Row 3, Stilwater has quite clearly distinguishable areas such as a commercial district, university, a trailer park or the airport. Not only making navigation through the city more memorable, but also having a much more realistic feel of a city with clear demographic groups and vehicles found in those areas.

The big problem:
The PC version is very badly ported and notorious to work bad. A remastered mod has been delayed indefinitely and will probably never happen. However: There is the Gentlemen of the Row mod. It fixes many issues with the game and helps improve the performance quite significantly. An absolute must to have, cause the game is otherwise unplayable. It will still feel somewhat sluggish, even on a modern high-end PC, but good enough to enjoy the game for what it is.

This is probably one of the greatest RPGs you can play. It is a bit rough around the edges and will not guide you as much as you might expect it nowadays, but be sure to give it a shot.

Gothic 2 gives you an exploration experience that is in many ways unchallenged. The game world is handcrafted and designed to guide you through stronger (and hand placed) enemies that will cut you from going there. But: if you are good, you can still manage. Player skill can go quite far.

However, there is no reason not to follow the well-designed quests that mostly make sense in the context of the game and help you find your bearings. Tedious fetch-quests usually only pop up in the beginning when you're inexperienced, while later quests ask you to do things that actually make sense intrinsically for you as a player.

The only downsides are the difficult balancing, as the game can be extremely difficult in the beginning with potential to use skill points wrong or use buffs too early, and the sped up later chapters of the game. The last two chapters feel a bit short and rushed in comparison to the beautiful first three chapters.

All in all, a classic that deserves the cult-following it has.

An important note:
Follow one of the guides in the Community Hub about playing the game on modern systems and with some mods such as DirectX11. It will really smoothen the experience.

Again, a different Tropico experience than in the fourth or fitfth installment, but the vibe is in full frame again. There is just nothing like building to salsa music and stealing the statue of liberty.

Great game with some hiccups in the management part. A bit repetitive towards the end, as every level is a new hospital from scratch with just slightly different features, but the humour and good soundtrack make it still enjoyable!