Recent reviews by Bearsonal

After Dead Island 2's unforgettable trailer back in 2014, I can't believe the final product is this poorly made.

There's not much to talk about here. The combat system, which should be a thrilling part of any zombie game, feels clunky and repetitive. Graphically it looks good most of the time. The storyline also leaves much to be desired. The characters you meet are shallow, and their quests often boil down to repetitive fetch missions. The narrative attempts to engage, but with lackluster voice acting and poor dialogue, it’s hard to care about what happens next. Level Designs are constantly doing the same thing for 10 hours, which is so frustrating. The game gets very hard after some point because you get under-leveled if you don't grind. In Dead Island 2, grinding is mandatory. If you don't grind in boring side quests, you'll get one shot later in the story, horrible game design.

Performance starts well with 80-90 FPS, then becomes 20-40 FPS with constant stutters after a few hours into the game. They optimized the first 2 hours so that you won't be able to refund it. Load times are frustratingly long. Being an Epic exclusive is also a huge negative. Even though I played with a friend, It was still torture to play. We just rushed it for the sake of completing it together. Dead Island 2's a terrible product in every aspect. Not recommended, not even on a sale, and not even if you will be playing with a friend.


Follow My Curator Page ❤️

I think the developers forgot what made the first game so special and instead focused on making a bigger and more ambitious game. This game could have been much better if they had just remembered what made the first game so unique.

I loved The Talos Principle. It was such a gem in many ways. It had clever puzzle and level design, interesting narrative, phenomenal graphics for its year and budget, good soundtrack, and beautiful environmental design. The only issue with it was that it was a little bit too long, thus it began being rather repetitive at the end. Nevertheless, it was a great experience throughout the journey.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3071931987

In The Talos Principle 2, the most flashy improvement that catches the player's eye is the graphics. The game looks absolutely stunning visually, the art design is masterfully done. Especially in some areas, they took it to another level. Graphically, Talos 2 is easily the best-looking puzzle game in the market.

Puzzle-wise, we have well-designed puzzles in Talos 2, just like the first game. But I can easily say that puzzles are way easier in this one. In the first game, I had to look up the solutions for 2-3 puzzles, and the other ones were mostly very challenging too. In Talos 2, I didn't need help in any of them, and I didn't use the in-game puzzle skip mechanic. Thankfully, this game doesn't repeat itself like the first one did. The game introduces new mechanics throughout the journey. The puzzles are fun to solve and engaging, but I still felt the achievement feeling after solving both simple and challenging puzzles. However, the major issue with this game is, why isn't any of the puzzle mechanics connected? The answer is, to not make things difficult for the player. This is a major letdown because that was exceptionally well done in the first game and I expected that to be experimented further here.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3094080194

Exploring the world and secrets with friends is not bad, but the first game's solitude feeling with beautiful music was a whole other feeling. The first game's story was way more interesting than this one, TTP had a better balance, like 90% gameplay, 10% story, now it's like 65%-35%, which slows the tempo down by a lot. Neither the scenario nor the characters were interesting to me. By the way, the music got downgraded with this one, Talos 1's music was so captivating and atmospheric. This has a few decent tracks, but they are not as remarkable as the prequel. I know this is a demanding game, but performance could have been way better, there are some issues here.

To conclude, The Talos Principle 2 doesn't have the magic that The Talos Principe had, so It didn't feel that special for me. Although I am a little bit disappointed with it, It's still a high-quality game and I had fun with it. Definitely recommended.



Follow My Curator Page ❤️

Ubisoft keeps copying successful games once again. In 2018, They realized the success of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, cloned it and named it Brawlhalla. Then, they saw Apex Legends explode, and created a clone called Hyper Scape (I bet you forgot that game existed before reading this). They saw how much The Witcher 3 sold and changed Assassin's Creed to that, which of course didn't fit the series. They saw Zelda, Boom! Immortals Fenyx Rising (underrated game). Sea of Thieves to Skull and Bones, Call of Duty to XDefiant, the list goes on...What a shame what Ubisoft has become today, they were visionary and imaginative developers back then.

Seems like Ubisoft had their eye on the Forza Horizon series in the last few years. Because they completely revamped The Crew as they did with the Assassin's Creed series. Even though The Crew had its own character and originality in the last 2 games. I loved driving around some famous U.S. states like Las Vegas, Los Angeles Chicago, Miami, New York City, and San Francisco, and many more. Even though they weren't one-to-one replicas, Ubisoft did a good job reflecting the states. This was the major selling point of The Crew. In 2014, I remember people hyping about The Crew having the whole U.S.A. map in the game. Even though that wasn't true, that was the major selling point of this series. It's safe to say that The Crew Motorfest is an absolute Forza Horizon clone now. Ubisoft trashed an impressive concept like "tour the whole United States in The Crew" and dumped it to turn the series into a Festival racer that takes place on a boring island. 

Let's talk about the game, this is 100% the same game as The Crew 2, except the map. Graphically, it looks around the same quality as The Crew 2, maybe slightly better. They improved the in-game lightning but render distance and texture resolutions are still way behind 2024 standards. The dynamic weather effects add an extra layer of immersion though. A 60 FPS limit in 2024 is crazy lazy. Plus, I hate how Ubisoft doesn't release their games on Steam from day one. Not that I am eagerly anticipating their boring games, but the last Prince of Persia game looks nice. However, dear Ubisoft, I'll never buy your games if they are not on Steam.

If we get back to Motorfest, the map design, mission structure, the race designs, have all been ripped out of Forza Horizon. Also, I hate the way both these games treat you as a baby and throw you 20 supercars for just playing for 5 minutes. I despise this game design. The HUD design is also terrible, there are many of stuff popping out on your screen like challenges and gaining points for anything, and their notifications, are all super annoying. I turned all of them off and the game looked way better. Both Forza and Motorfest expect you to play indefinitely, thus they come with repetitive and dull events. The AI is unbalanced, while sometimes they drive extremely poorly, and sometimes they forget the laws of physics with the way they drive, all in the same difficulty option.

The gameplay is the only decent part of The Crew series, where handling the cars and audio are what save the game for a bit. But It's still uncanny how bad the physics in both Forza and The Crew are. In The Crew 2, if you liked the modification stuff, it's still all here. One thing The Crew does better than Forza is the menus. Menus in Forza are slow as hell, one simple action, or loading in and out of races takes forever, it's such an annoyance. In The Crew Motorfest, loading screens and using the menus are quick.

Even though I don't think The Crew Motorfest is a bad game, it's a mediocre one for sure. However, The Forza series is also extremely overrated, so I can say TC Motorfest is around the same quality as Horizon. Forza's slightly better graphics trick people into thinking they are playing the best racing game ever, making sure people overlook the poor game design. So this review applies to the Forza Horizon series as well, they are simply the same boring car-collecting game now, rather than true racers.


Follow My Curator Page ❤️

Something has to be done about Ea Sport's Fifa (FC) series' monopoly on football games. If no other studio comes up with a quality game, EA will keep screwing us up every single year. Because let's face the truth, even though it's many problems I will mention below, this is still the best football game on the market.

To summarize what I dislike about FC 24:

The optimization is as per usual, terrible. I can't remember when EA released a FIFA on PC that ran well.

The in-game menus are very slow. Doing a simple action on Ultimate Team takes minutes even if you skip them. This is one of the main reasons I don't play UT.

The fact that EA mixed men and women in Ultimate Team. Everything about it just doesn't make sense. A 40 kg woman can charge and stop Haaland just because her overall is higher. Yeah, all women's overalls are ridiculously overpowered, just to make sure people played them. You don't need to integrate women into men's football and OP women just to make the 1%≈ of FIFA's player base (women) happy.

I am not even talking about EA improving absolutely nothing with the game and releasing the same game every year. As long as people keep spending extreme amounts of money on 1-year lifetime squads on Ultimate Team and preordering the Ultimate Edition at launch, we can't expect anything better from them.


Follow My Curator Page ❤️

I've been hearing one significant phrase from many people about Lies of P since it was released: "Lies of P is the best Souls-like aside FromSoftware games." Is that true? Let me share my thoughts with you.

Since Lords of the Fallen 2014, countless studios tried their version of Dark Souls over many years with countless attempts. There have been attempts of the genre in many ways, 2D Soulslikes, Shooter Soulslikes, Metroidvania Souls-likes, Looter Souls-Likes, and so on...Even though some of them were successful games. One thing everybody agrees on is that none of those games is as good as FromSoftware's games. Everyone agreeing on the internet on a topic is a rare topic as you know. That's how good FromSoft's Soulsborne games are.

To begin with Lies of P, the game runs great. I didn't experience a single drop throughout my experience. This is a great achievement for an inexperienced studio in AAA games and probably the strongest side of Lies of P. The graphics in Lies of P are amazing. It's safe to say the game looks way better than any Fromsoftware game. The art design is very good and the game looks beautiful up until chapter 7. After that, environments and enemies look very unimaginative and ordinary.

So Lies of P is inspired by Bloodborne visually, that's true. But this is definitely not a Bloodborne knockoff, like some people says it is. Lies of P has its own originality with its atmosphere, environment design, enemy design, soundtrack, combat, and so on.

While the story was intriguing, I couldn't help but feel that it could have been fleshed out further, with more opportunities for player choice and exploration. I don't know why, but studios are too scared to properly tell a story in Souls-like games. Possibly in order to copy Fromsoftware's formula. Trust me game devs, the success of FromSoft games doesn't come from lore-based stories. Tell us your stories with cutscenes, please. Yes, there are cutscenes in Lies of P but it really isn't enough. I am sick of being expected to learn a game's story by notes and item descriptions.

Enemies in the game have way too much health, and they don't react much when you hit them. Boss battles are especially tough because they have many phases, sometimes too many. When making a game like Souls, it's important to learn from From Software's lessons about making tough but fair fights. I am okay with linear games that don't waste the player's time with repetitive content, but some exploration wouldn't hurt.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3230243674 

The mechanics are kinda confusing. Because i can't understand for sure if this game is trying to be Sekiro, Bloodborne, or Dark Souls. Lies of P has mechanics implemented from all of them, like perfect parrying, but unfortunately, this mechanic neither works well nor feels accurate in this game as Sekiro did. Aggressive Bloodborne playing doesn't work as well, because of enemies' input reading, not getting staggering, or having extremely high health after some point of the game. This is a parry game like Sekiro, so Bloodborne game style is not an option honestly. Dashing out of an attack is also a crucial mechanic that you have to use because you can't parry every attack, in your first playthrough at least. This could be different with speedrunners though. But dashing doesn't feel or play right, even after you upgrade dashing, which shouldn't be a thing in the beginning.

Some bosses feel very badly designed to fight with these mechanics. Also, some attacks are very poorly telegraphed, making receiving a hit inevitable. Even though I played the game with heavy weapons. Some enemies refused to get staggered. Which doesn't make sense since I am taking a risk with landing many long timed charged attacks. The prosthetic arms are pretty much useless, even though I upgraded and scaled them to their fullest and tried many of them.

There are countless aspects to review while talking about a Souls-like game that would exceed Steam's character limit. All in all, even though I had fun until chapter 8, after that it was extremely repetitive and rushed. The combat is severely problematic, the game tries to be 3 games at once and doesn't succeed in any of them. Lies of P is not a bad game, but it's not even close to the Fromsoft games many people say. It's just above the Steelrising/Thymesia tier for me. Despite being an okay game, I am not generous with my recommendations and I have high standards in games. If I don't feel 100% confident with a game, I just won't recommend it. Maybe grab it on a sale, above 50%.

❤️ Lots of kisses and thanks to my dear brother SNUP DUG for gifting me this game ❤️


Follow My Curator Page ❤️

I've been looking forward to Tchia's Steam release for over a year. So I've purchased it as it released. It looked so beautiful and so relaxing. I could use that kind of relaxing game. But after completing the main story, I can say that Tchia is extremely shallow in every way.

Let's talk about the obvious first, the game looks stunning in the nature side. The graphics, the lightnings, the textures, are all well done. Interestingly, the city side looks absolutely disgusting graphically. It's uncanny how big the difference is. It's like different studios with distant abilites worked on these 2 regions.

Exploration is at the heart of Tchia, because even though it has a main story, Tchia is a sandbox game at its core. The game expects you to explore the world and spend time doing so. It has a similar game design with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But Tchia's world is very bland, soulless, and has nothing for the player to find. Additionally, there is no challenge. There is combat but it is so unnecessary and weird.

The optimization is good, the game works bug-free. Which is a rare thing these days. The story suffers from a lack of cohesion and depth. Characters are underdeveloped and terribly written. Tchia is filled with no context events in its story, which are meaningless. Storytelling at its worst.

Transforming in other animals and object is an interesting mechanic indeed. But Tchia is a game that has various things you can play as but the also a game that doesn't provide different gameplay scenarios for you to use them. Thus, this mechanic feels meaningless.

To conclude, Tchia may be the worst open-world sandbox game I've ever played. It has one of the emptiest worlds I've ever seen, meaningless mechanics, terrible storytelling and characters, repetitive map design, and horrible game design all along.


Follow My Curator Page ❤️

I have never played Plants vs. Zombies back in the day, even when it was wildly popular, strangely, it never caught my interest. So this is a first-timer's blind gameplay of this gem in 2024. Firstly, the game definitely needs a remastered version. It needs many improvements on the technical side.

Plants vs. Zombies consists of a delightful blend of humor and strategy. What truly sets Plants vs. Zombies apart is its perfect balance of accessibility and depth. While the concept of planting defenses to fend off zombies may seem straightforward, the game gradually introduces new creative mechanics and challenges that keep players engaged throughout the adventure.

The mechanics are easy to grasp, allowing players of all skill levels to jump in and start having fun immediately. Each level is meticulously designed to provide a balance of strategic planning and fast-paced action, ensuring that players must think on their feet to succeed.

Visually, Plants vs. Zombies is a treat for the eyes, with colorful and vibrant graphics, also its beautiful aesthetics that bring its charming world to life. From the adorable animations of the plants to the comically grotesque designs of the zombies, every aspect of the game's art direction contributes to its fanciful atmosphere.

The diverse environments, coupled with inventive level design and clever obstacles, ensure that players are constantly faced with new and exciting scenarios as they defend their lawn against the zombie invasion.
Plants vs. Zombies offers a variety of mini-games and additional game modes that provide players with unique challenges and opportunities to test their skills in creative ways.

These mini-games and additional game modes add depth and replay value to Plants vs. Zombies, offering players a variety of unique challenges to tackle beyond the main campaign. The soundtrack is incredible. They are instantly recognizable, adding an extra layer of charm and enriching the gameplay experience. Once again, Laura Shigihara delivers a phenomenal soundtrack.

Overall, the gameplay and game design of Plants vs. Zombies is a masterclass in accessible yet engaging game design. Every aspect of the game is crafted with care and attention to detail. With its addictive mechanics, clever level design, each level offering a fresh and unique setting with its own challenges and strategic opportunities, it's no wonder that Plants vs. Zombies has stood the test of time as a beloved classic in the world of gaming.

Plants vs. Zombies stands as a testament to timeless fun and strategic brilliance.


Follow My Curator Page ❤️

It's mind-blowing how a 2$ game can be way more fun than the 60$ Horizon Forbidden West. Well, there is no guarantee of fun gameplay with a high budget.

As I launched Buckshot Roulette for the first time and walked up to the table, I thought, "I think this game was inspired by Inscryption". Because its theme, atmosphere, camera angles, how it's played, and spookiness were all similar to that game. What I loved to see was once I checked the credits, it said "Buckshot Roulette was inspired by Daniel Mullin's work", meaning Inscryption. I love it when developers are honest because there is no shame in getting inspired by another product.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3219704957
You have various tools in Buckshot Roulette. Meaning you have many options on how to strategize each round. What makes it more engaging is that you have to also think about the opponent's possible plays. When pure luck and guessing are added into that scenario, it creates a highly fun and unique gameplay.

I wish Buckshot Roulette was longer. But I can't complain about that with the 2$ price tag. After the multiplayer update, I hope we can see a fully developed game with more content because this left me itching for more, just like the 1/3 section of Inscryption.


Follow My Curator Page ❤️

That's what I felt during my playthrough of Outer Wilds. I am experiencing something that's very rare and special. This one hits different.

It's very difficult to talk about Outer Wilds. The less you know about this game, the better. So I won't spoil the magic. But what I love the most about Outer Wilds without revealing much, is that to progress, you do not need powerups or new skills or tools. All you need is knowledge. This is such a different game design choice from other games, I love it. I often doubted myself if I wasn't smart enough to complete this game and solve the mystery behind it. But after many difficult hours spent, I made it.

Outer Wilds is masterfully done in every aspect and is an experience I will treasure for a lifetime. The soundtrack is simply amazing, they made me feel various emotions throughout my journey. I don't think it has any flaws, even though I tried finding one.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3214753017

Being able to travel seamlessly in our solar system without any loading screens is quite a feat. That's what a famous game studio should take as an example. And I guess we don't need 1000+ planets to have an amazing experience, do we? By the way, top-notch sound design is what most indie studious can not achieve. But it's implemented amazingly well here. I've never felt this frightened in a game before. Outer Wilds has some of the greatest atmospheres in games ever.

Even if you think you are stuck and can not progress anymore, please do not use Google in your time with Outer Wilds, it will only ruin the experience for you. Believe me, all the knowledge has been sprouted in the galaxy. All you need to do is read carefully and think about the things you discovered. Your curiosity is the key to progress in Outer Wilds.

I can't say that this game is for everyone, but It was definitely for me. If you have a similar taste to me, or trust my taste, I definitely recommend it. Thank you Mobius Digital for creating such a masterpiece, and Annapurna Interactive for seeing the potential and supporting it.


Follow My Curator Page ❤️

There was a lot of hype going on with Dragon's Dogma 2. I was also curious about it, of course. But I didn't jump on the hype train like everybody else because I hadn't experienced the first game yet. So like I always do, I wanted to complete the first game before I play the upcoming one...Seems like Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen was a terrible game after all.

This is the first and only game I am reviewing without finishing the main story. The reason is, I can't take it anymore. Even though I have very high patience with games, I can't take this frustration anymore. This is the biggest insult I can give to a game, I couldn't bear it enough to finish it before reviewing it.

Let's get the good stuff out of the way first. The game mechanics work and feel well, every class feels different and landing attacks on enemies feel really good. The pawn system is cool and nice to customize to your needs. The graphics are very good for the year 2012. The main menu music is beautiful.

One of the most important if not the most important aspect of a RPG is its storytelling and the story itself. It has an interesting concept at first bother later on the game doesn't even bother telling you any story. The pawns or any other characters aren't remotely interesting either.

The problem isn't that the game didn't age well, I've played 30-40-year-old games and had a blast through them. Dragon's Dogma's problem is in its game design. You are supposed to explore the world in the way to vague quests. In these journeys, you are supposed to walk around the map, because fast travel isn't an option most of the time. When you are walking with your party, you are ambushed by the same groups of enemies a thousand times, which is very frustrating. Speaking of frustration, you need stamina while running, which depletes very quickly, and every time it depletes, our character needs to stop and rest for 5-6 seconds. This happens countless times, and frustration grows. It makes me appreciate Death Stranding even more, for making walking this engaging and designing the environment to support the gameplay.

The game has terrible map design visually, none of the architecture or the environment is remotely appealing or interesting in any way. This leads to devouring the exploration for me. The map is very empty and lifeless. Dragon's Dogma doesn't tell you anything about how to progress in the story. I am fine with this choice, this has been implemented masterfully by many other games. But with a map this boring, and lame exploration, trying to progress in the story feels like torture.

The save system adds to the frustration, you never can trust the autosave function. If you want to save manually, get ready to spend minutes just to save your game. The game is definitely unbalanced, you are often sent for quests that are way too powerful for you and sometimes the opposite.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen feels like an MMORPG or a hack-and-slash rather than a Role-Playing-Game because it has the same bland and laboring quest design as MMOs and no well-planned quests like many RPGs.

To be honest, from what I can see from the trailers and gameplay videos, Dragon's Dogma 2 seems like it has all of the same issues as the first game. But can't know for sure without experiencing it for the first time. I won't bother buying it before it has a deep sale, I don't want to relive the same frustration anytime soon.

There are countless issues with this game, but I am too fed up to write about it already. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is good with the combat feel, but extremely lacking in almost every other aspect. I want to delete this game from my memory and move on. Not recommended even with a deep sale. It's a waste of time.


Follow My Curator Page ❤️