Recent reviews by B_Hurlbs

....ok

Megaman X5: A decent game during most levels but is ruined by story and details. Some stages are just bad but the fact that you can get the bad ending due to no fault of your own is BS.

Megaman X6: Gets more hate than it deserves, has challenging situations that cannot be solved using conventional Megaman Logic and all the players get mad that what worked for 5 games wont work now. The castle stages are where you lose me, Chaos Mother, HighMax, Gate is too much. All of them are terrible boss fights in their own right.

Megaman X7: Some of the worst Mavericks of the series and capcom trying to shift focus from X to something else, WTF. It does feel good to control 3D models of my favorite characters, but the level design is note fit for a 3D environment, especially when wall climbing is such a key piece of the game.

Megaman X8: A good return to form. Megman belongs in 2D, But I cant help but hate the story of MMX8. I feel like it still focuses too much on Axl. The priority in my opinion should be connecting the X series to the Z series with as little plot holes as possible. Give us an introduction into the Elf Wars. Let us imagine what kind of battle X had to fight while Zero was stuck in storage. Create a narrative that actually makes me worry for the characters of a series 8 games deep

Whole Series 5-8 : 6/10 Solid gameplay but sacrifices all larger story for pushing out games
X7 Overall : 2/10 BURN TO THE GROUND

Please X9 be a starting trilogy for the Elf wars, where X has to deal the loss of Zero without him being used a cheap ass callback. Let Axl absorb zeroes powers to give players the satisfaction of the play style while maintaining the integrity of the story. Give us the run up to X losing faith in fighting for good and actually deliver on deeper story telling. If Capcom just copies some of the most faithful fan theories they would have a story people will love. MM11 Has given me great hope that capcom understands the appeal of these games.

A great return to form for Trine. Trine 4 remembers what made the 2D puzzle solving of Trine 2 fun. This is coming from the perspective of playing with 3 player coop, but it becomes very interesting getting all 3 players across puzzles. You will think up a solution using your skills and then realize a teammate can do it easier with theirs. Abilities from previous games return and new abilities are added to spice things up.

The art is fantastic, specifically helped by the lighting engine that cast dynamic shadows in the 2.5D environment. The levels progress in logical ways and each level has gimmicks and tricks to learn and highlight different characters. if your playing with others a lot of fun can come from thinking about their abilities as well as your own.

The difficulty of the game has seen a nerf, as all achievements tied to hardcore completion are gone. I think hardcore achievement are good because they encourage people to beat the level without any mistakes. Not worrying about mistakes also opens up different and fun ways to play such as abusing the physics engine of the game. This is a minor complaint, but I wish Trine 4 had achievements tied to hardcore hard mode completion. The game is fleshed out and complete, casual players will not be put off from EXTRA achievements tied to hard challenges.

The story is bare bones and frankly low stakes for the series. It is isolated to a certain set of characters and does not have implications for the larger story like a long running series should. The final boss ends up being intimidating, but I learned very little from the story other than small details during each characters boss fight.

Overall, 8/10 , a great puzzle platformer that can be elevated by playing with friends

An excellent story based survival game. The atmosphere and immersion is incredible in this game when you hunker down in a dark room. Playing on hardcore mode will only increase that immersion by eliminating your HUD. Hardcore mode will also make combat feel more rewarding, with most enemies falling to a single head shot.

Some aspects of the game have been changed from the original Metro 2033 like level design in the trolley level, but the graphic overhaul makes this the definitive version for me.

Achievements were well designed for the most part. Only gripe being they removed the achievement for beating the game on Ranger Hardcore. This game embraces challenge, the achievements should too! Most achievements can be gotten by reloading chapters, so there is minimal content you can miss besides the good ending, which you will need a guide to achieve unless you want to scour every inch of every map at a CHANCE of getting it.

Story spoilers: The story is sad and vague, full of grey-tones of good and evil. The narrative is compelling and tells a great anti-war story that is not as simple as "war is bad". One of the main influences in the game is the ranger you meet in the beginning, Hunter. He has a motto of, "if it is hostile, kill it.". Throughout the game this motto is repeated and it is played off to represent man's blood lust. Towards the end it takes on a different meaning, as you realize the "antagonists" of the story have never really been hostile towards you specifically and have even saved you periodically. So "if it is hostile, kill it" becomes the justification for saving the Dark Ones.

Basically, it good. 9/10