Recent reviews by 'drn'

Great game so long as you can get past the visuals.

It's like Dwarf Fortress adventure mode based in a similarly post apocalypse alien world like Kenshi. Loads of fun builds to try out, really tough at the start and there are challenges throughout.

The Rogue-like elements can be avoided by using Roleplay mode so you can have backup saves of fun characters if you wish. Food and survival is really easy once you understand the basics so you can get stuck in and just go hunting cool loot and level up super fast once you find your flow. Really fun game, can tell there's hours upon hours of game here to explore, it's massive!

A fun little game, definitely cut from the same cloth as Kingdom, as a 2d side scrolling castle and kingdom builder. Has local co-op which is always fantastic to see and great for youngsters to play alongside you with. Particularly liked the more defined art style with the relaxed and approachable nature of it whilst still having a fair degree of challenge to clear all the content!

This is a hard one to review. I thoroughly enjoyed the first 60 hours, it was atmospheric and engaging. The gun play was fun a whole new universe to see was invigorating. There was enough exploration and intrigue for me to find something new and exciting every 30 minutes or so and the side quests were enjoyably well crafted with a surprising amount of polish.

The down side was once I progressed the main story... well... there were choices that I'm not sure I found satisfying. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I wont, but all I'll say is why isn't the Emissary Sebastian Banks? The whole game would've been more satisfying, the hints in the lore would've made sense. The losses we experienced would have stayed impactful. Instead we get a rug pull and... nothing. It just felt wrong; a doppelganger trying to replace of another character. Neither side appealed or made any sense in the end. It felt like Mass Effect 3's red, green blue choice and I chose none. My game ended there, I chose to step away.

The whole game is let down by the main story for me. Despite the premise for it being amazing, the writing and characters you're meant to sympathise with just didn't hit the mark for me. I can see what they aimed for but the moments of joy and actual connection were few and far between. Everything was very bland, very vanilla, very safe. Coming from having just replayed Cyberpunk 2077 the city of Neon just felt like it was paper thin and empty. The loading screens on every transition started to grate on my patience, all my work carrying and hording and building an arsenal of cool weapons and scrimping money felt wasted after a certain point in the story.

I don't know. I feel deflated after putting so much time and effort into the game. The ending and the choices offered just didn't work for me. All I felt was a sense of nihilism - nothing matters here, hard work isn't something that pays off, characters you grow close to are dramatically changed for some big story reveal that just didn't work for me.

I'm sorry. Maybe in a few years time I'll be able to come back and appreciate the game for what it is instead of what I wanted it to be. But really, it's left me feeling empty and hollow. For a universe and story who's premise is exploration and optimism I think the lasting taste I came away with was just... bitterness. Sorry, loved those first 60 hours and would recommend those hours to anyone who thinks they would enjoy Skyrim in space, but the ending to the story just didn't work for me. Big miss on so many levels, don't think I've been this angry at a game's writing in a long time.

A great game for sure. I'm not finished yet because it's huge, but this is a wonderful extension of the old Baldur's Gate story in a compelling weave of characters and narratives that you can influence in a thousand different ways. It works on my Steam Deck so long as I keep it plugged in and am happy with 30 fps.

The scope and breadth of the game are immense and I hope people can enjoy the stories they want to in the world, be it as saviour or villain, monster or messiah, play as a faceless nobody or become face of a movement to change the world. Sometimes the romances feel a bit rushed but the voice acting throughout the whole game more than makes up for it. There are some stellar performances here.

It's been great so far and I can't wait to see the grand finale of the story after another 30-40 hours of play. Suspect I'll even do a second play through to see the story of other companion characters that I shunned during this run. It's a big ask and a huge commitment, but it's worth it in my eyes if you enjoy narratively focused roleplay games. The combat's a little easy on normal with occasional spikes to keep you awake but I really should have done my first play through on the hard difficulty, if you're an old hand at RPGs like me then dive in but do turn the difficulty up a notch otherwise as soon as you hit level 6 you outscale the challenge.

Great game.

Armies of giant robots fighting each other. The tactical depth of a real time strategy game without the stress about micro managing everything. You put the units down, plan your technologies and economy and let them blow the enemy to smithereens!

There's 1v1, 2v2, co-op vs AI and survival modes. Really well balanced and the devs are still doing weekly patches and adding features on top. Very impressed.

Great game, can already tell how much care and attention to detail has been put into both the world and the gameplay systems you as a player engage with. Combat is fun, play on Hard for a bit more of a challenge, the story seems really solid so far, Hogwarts as a location is top tier.

There are some performance issues with a few stutters just after you change from inside the castle to outside, or after you fast travel using the Floo powder network but I'm sure they'll be ironed out in a week or two. Very graphically demanding game, whilst it looks great I'm not sure it's fully optimised as the frame rate really swings in some areas - again hopefully they'll address and improve this in the current weeks. Overall a very enjoyable experience in a unique setting that is incredibly well realised. Definitely worth a play if you're a fan of the books!

Surprisingly fun game, scratches the survival itch with a nice twist. I've only played on private servers so can't comment on PvP but the boss fights are varied and interesting and the progression tree has a decent amount of depth.

Default controls are a little janky with priority being given to hotbar slots, when in reality you'll be using your spells and abilities far more than you'll be changing weapon or tool. Extra mouse buttons help fix this. It feels like the game is crying out for controller support but right now mouse and keyboard is the only way. Surprisingly demanding for the level of fidelity on show, you can hear the GPU fans spinning up to max after a few mins in game, could do with an fps limit in the options.

Pros:
Fun gameplay and vampire fantasy, everything from enthralling victims, to stealing powers and shape shifting.
Solid combat, really good for a survival game
Decent base building, good balance of ease of use and depth for player expression
Great amount of content for an early access release (30+ bosses, decent tech tree)

Cons:
Fairly mundane world design, not many secrets or surprises to find at all
Lots of time spent traversing this world relatively slowly, mounts feel clunky to ride.
Imperfect optimisation, very high system resource usage
Lack of controller support, awkward default key binds.

Overall:
A very solid 7/10 with room to improve but a fun and sizeable game already delivering on pretty cheap price.

Definately a fun game. Surprisingly deep with as much challenge as you want as you can set yourself a goal and work towards it, Getting your first Archmage really feels like an achievement in management and planning. Dungeon runs need a bit more fleshing out, they feel very much like an after thought to the main body of the game.

Enjoyed the final level the most, which is generally a good sign as it meshes together all the mechanics you've learned along the way in the campaign and adds a new twist and difficulty to overcome. Overall, a definate recommend if you enjoy planning and management games with a wonderful fantastical setting. Build your own Hogwarts and save the world before He Who Will Not be Named destroys everything.

I've played a lot of games over the years. And across the myriad of hours spent I have never played anything like Kenshi.

Kenshi is old school. It's slow. It's hard. It's punishing. It's grindy and often pointless. Yet also incredibly compelling and unique. There's nothing like it in existence, it's both ugly and beautiful. The UI is a mess, so get the Dark UI mod at the very least and avoid burning your retinas away.

The biggest achievement you'll make is to simply survive as a samurai on a post-apocalyptic and alien world. I've done three play throughs over the last three years and spent over a hundred hours learning the ins and outs and I've barely scratched the surface. There are places I've never dared to tread and there are enemies I've never dared to face.

If you enjoy making your own goals, and can put up with graphics that feel two decades old, then Kenshi might be for you. If you can accept your characters getting beaten, enslaved, losing arms and legs to giant desert cockroaches, and press on learning from the experience, adapt and overcome it. Returning with mechanical prosthetics and farm those same cockroaches for meat to feed your alien bull then Kenshi might be for you.

In truth I don't know if Kenshi is really for me, but I've enjoyed a hundred hours trying to find out. It's unique and slow, a brutal world full of atmosphere that lets you create your own stories, leaving you to chase your dreams at your own pace. But it's frustrating and certainly wont hold your hand or help you along the way. To sum it all up; if you preferred Morrowind to Oblivion, then Kenshi is probably a game you'll enjoy.

An immense space game. Fun and challenging but the greatest challenge is the unwieldy UI which will put people short on time off. If you've got the patience to overcome getting familiar with the UI this can be a truly excellent space adventure and empire building game. Albion Prelude is a great starting point for those unfamiliar with the series who want a space game with a huge amount of freedom and a vast range of possibilities.

Fight, trade, explore, build, or just chill and cruise - you are the master of your own fate in this vast universe.