Neue Rezensionen von Lars

Despite me being hilariously bad at this game, I keep firing it up for a few runs more or less daily. Dead Cells nails everything, truly a gem in its procedural metroidvania genre. Great gameplay that is tough but very enjoyable. Great art, sound and music. The different items and weapons you acquire often greatly changes up how you approach the levels.

Finally, Dead Cells is blessed with spectacular post launch support. There's been over a dozen major feature updates since release, all for the grand cost of zero. Truly refreshing in the current games economy, can't praise this enough.

Dead Cells is worth a look for almost all players. Even if you never dabble with metroidvanias, if you were to pick one to get for occasional play, this is the one.

Sidescrolling schmup that triggers my 'Project X' and 'R-Type' retro pleasure centers very nicely!

Extensive upgrade system for different types of ships. Local MP for 2-4 players and, as a pleasant surprise, an up to 8 players online mode!

There's even multi-crew larger class ships you can dock on and take over. Haven't dipped into the MP side of the game yet, but do want.

As a Tower Defense enthusiast, if you're looking for solid TD gameplay I think there's far better options out there.

If you got kids around, this game is fantastic. It has an appealing style, from the cutey monsters to the soundtrack, and you better brace yourself for high pitched squealing from the young ins as spider hordes set in to steal your village people, as you attempt to actually play the game by placing towers and upgrading them, and the co-player puts rubbish defenses in the trees in all the wrong places and screams as they try to pick up the coins and run into the monsters or drown in the rivers, continuously losing your defense building currencies.

This may sound bad, but it is not meant as such. The kids I played this with adore this game, and it is balanced in such a way that overall it clearly beneficial to be two players if you want to perform well on the stages. I've actually had an enjoyable time too, considering the constant tampering from my co-op allies.

But really, if you are sitting down to play some solid TD, and you are not on babysitting duty, I would not fire this thing up. Go play Defense Grid, Defender's Quest, Bloons or something else.

All that said, this still gets a thumbs up for something as cool as being a Tower Defense game that is appealing to a seven year old. Gotta appreciate that!

Good:

- Oathbreaker is a great class. It has obvious synergy with the Soldier class and adds much needed oomph to typically very defensive builds. That is of course just the tip of the iceberg, there's lots of potential multiclassing with the Oathbreaker.
- The new desert environment is beautiful. Take notes developers, on how to make seemingly boring terrain full of interesting bits such as ancient ruins and especially the gorgeous oasis zone. Overall I like these new zones better than the original ones, they're open and well populated with points of interest. Especially when compared to the horribly cramped, yet still somehow lacking in locations of interest found in the Malmouth city environment from the previous expansion.
- 3 new main factions to side with exclusively. While you can unlock reputation rewards with all the factions, it still encourages replaying the expansion content several times to see what quests and lore each side offers.
- New enemy types and loot is always welcome, also new devotion constellations to struggle with how to optimally make use of.

Slightly Meh:

- Forgotten Gods is surprisingly short, overall less content than I typically expect from expansion sized DLCs.
- No level cap increase. Yes, there's good arguments for not adding it, but I'm still a little disappointed.

Positive review because 'Borderlands GOTY Enhanced' did nothing wrong, and I am sad to see it get shredded in reviews because of the crappy exclusivity deal on EGS for BL3.

Gearbox recently released remasters for all three main series 'Borderlands' games, and this one is in my opinion the best of the mix.

Where in BL2 and BLTPS the changes are very subtle, the visual overhaul on this game is much more noticeable. Greatly improved textures and effects are always welcome, but I was also surprised to see a much cleaner user interface. It is still true to the original game, but looks much slicker, especially on higher resolutions like 1080p and above.

In addition to the shiny graphics, there are also gameplay related improvements, such as a minimap, and finally an FOV SLIDER (!) that doesn't require mad editing skillz, only to be still sort of broken. Seriously, so happy.

Outside of that, its still the same great game, just feeling a bit more relevant and not quite so janky to play anymore. I love this remaster.

If this was on an arcade cabinet back when I was a kid with no concept of money, who spent so many coins on those things I get the shakes just thinking about it.. then this would have been the awesomest machine in the arcade.

Conceptually simple to play, superb visuals and playability. If that's not enough, 'modern' comforts such as semi-persistent ship upgrades, collectibles and friend leaderboards are also included in the package.

If you ever played and liked classics like 'Blue Max', any arcade scrolling shooter, 'Tyrian', 'Raptor', or anything similar, this may be a new favourite.

Unfortunately only supports local 2P.

Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition gives you the classic game, both expansions, easy mod functionality thanks to Steam Workshop, and a rebuilt Online multiplayer system, and some visual improvements thanks to post processing filters, AO, and the like.

This all comes together in a pretty neat package, giving both new and returning players a D&D CRPG with a lot of depth, plenty of action and some solid story telling bits, something that has become quite rare in recent years.

I originally recommended against this game due to what I consider very questionable remastering quality, but I am changing the thumbwards direction after seeing developers Beamdog and community modders take steps to fix a crippling issue with certain effects causing framerate drops to the unplayable. It isn't a proper fix exactly, but now with a mod you can disable certain effects that are killer on the framerate and have more enjoyable sessions.

Its not a perfect remaster, I still think the interface is janky and should have more options for sizing and better positioning on modern gaming resolutions. Visually, I had hoped there were more coming with this re-release than just some post processing effects. And well, it is still the oldie NWN experience which is sometimes quite fiddly in general.

But it is Neverwinter Nights. It runs fine for me now, and it is a breeze to play it online thanks to it using Steam now, which I absolutely appreciate.

If you haven't been to Neverwinter yet, I can only recommend that you do so. As long as you are okay with some only halfways modern game and interface controls.

A clear labour of love, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a gorgeous RPG which will captivate you if you enjoy classic JRPG style tactical combat.

The visuals are an interesting mix of comic book style art and VERY well animated 3D models, and combined with gorgeous environments to explore and a top quality fantasy sound track, this game is a feast for the senses.

Character and battle systems stick faithfully to the JRPG style, but the game has a clearly western take on it, doing away with all the obscure stuff, such as combining and upgrading gems and materia and that stuff. There's plenty of depth in how to build your character, and it has a clean presentation with understandable explanations that anyone can work with.

A normal playthrough will not be overly challenging as it is easy to 'grind' out equipment and levels to steamroll most (definitely not all though) fights. All dungeons have difficulty settings of your choice, and when you beat the game a NG+ is unlocked which is very challenging.

The game's story, while enjoyable, didn't captivate me as I would have hoped, in this game it serves more as a frame around the beautiful work of art that is the combat.

I discovered Battle Chasers: Nightwar on Steam while randomly browsing the store, and it has been one of the most pleasant gaming surprises in recent years for me. I love this title and dearly hope to see a continuation of it.

Oh, and there's fishing, lots of fishing. Not that you have to do it, but you know, its fishing. Must fish.

2021 Updated Review:

My original review of this game is 3 years old at this point, and I feel its time to give my thoughts on the current game. There's a bit to go through here, but I'll try to keep it short where I can.

Since its 2018 release developers Fatshark have patched the game with bug fixes and tweaked features, and there's been a slew of paid DLC content packs in the form of new missions, weapons, 2 new 'career' choices for Bardin and Markus (each character will get a new career eventually), and a new difficulty for those feeling playing on the brutally punishing Legendary diff is too easy.

There are also two new game modes, one of which is 'Winds of Magic' which borrows from ARPG titles like the Diablo series with procedural content and a 'seasons', which occasionally reset your progress. The other new game mode added is 'Chaos Wastes' again leaning heavy into procedural content, but instead of seasons, it further randomizes runs with random weapons picks and 'favours' spicing up the gameplay.

Finally, we've seen the inclusion of an ingame store where you will find the bulk of the cosmetic customization options in the game, mostly through microtransactions.

Most of these updates like the ones featuring new missions or careers have been paid DLC, but there have been free content as well, in the form of for example the very enjoyable tavern crawl released during VT2's first anniversary, and perhaps most notably the latest Chaos Waste update mentioned above.

So, what do I think of Vermintide 2 as it is right now ?

The first thing that comes to mind is how well the gameplay has held up. The action is still as satisfying as ever, in fact I don't think anything has been released the last few years to quite top the online co-op first person melee focused horde survival struggle in the way Vermintide 2 does. My co-op crew has played some fantastic games over the years, but I don't think anything surpasses this game in terms of sheer fun.

The developers also deserve praise for relentlessly working on fixing bugs, and tweaking balance, and supporting the game with additional content over the years. Fatshark has said they plan to support the game actively until 2023, and so far they have shown no signs of letting up.

That said, the new player experience for the game isn't the greatest and could do with some improvements. Having to play on lower difficulties and slowly level your characters up so they can access proper gear and talent perks can be offputting for a new player, something we see commented every time the game has had free weekends on Steam. The game doesn't really kick into gear until you unlock the last talent slots, get some quality gear and start tackling the highest difficulties, something a new player might fall off long before they get to experience. Better ways for veteran players to scale down in power when grouping with new players would also help, as its not that fun for them to just try to keep up with the experts as they blaze through levels, one shotting bosses left and right.

Also, screw Winds of Magic, it sucks. Most of the other post release content has been very good, though, especially the latest free Chaos Waste mode which we've had a ton of fun with.

Summing up, I think Vermintide 2 holds up great. Going into this, I would just advise you to avoid playing with bots, and if possible, play with a friend or three. Also, keep in mind that the game doesn't truly shine until you've reached higher levels on your characters and tune up the difficulty.

Original 2018 Review below:

Short review:

Despite an obviously rushed release with a number of bugs, Vermintide 2 is the most enjoyable horde mode, end of the world, online co-op team survival game I have ever played. Developers FatShark deserve mad props for the experience they have created, and a fatherly loving slap for all the work the game still clearly needs.

First person melee combat has never felt as gratifying as it does on VT2. You reel in your chair when you fail to avoid powerful attacks from champion enemies, and grin as hordes of skaven squeal in ragdoll terror as you burn and decapitate various body parts en masse.

That said, bugs such as attacks not registering and the game spawning hordes literally on top of your party do need adressing, as it sometimes does sour the experience. There is also a problem with lower end hardware being stuck playing a particularly ugly game, as SSAO has to be disabled completely to get a decent framerate and as a result the engine disables drawing shaders entirely.

Still if you enjoy the particular genre Vermintide 2 is a must have, for the modest entry fee this game charges.

TLDR Review:

Nex Machina is amazeballs.

Bit longer review:

+ Responsive, deeply satisfying twinstick shooter gameplay. One stick moves, one stick shoots, one button dashes, and one button uses special attacks, that's it. Easy to learn, not quite so easy to get good at.
+ Solid visual style that thanks to clever 'colour coding' of enemies and projectiles manages to be somewhat manageable to not get lost in even when whole screen is swarmed with enemies and bullets.
+ Banging soundtrack. Worth the cost of the game alone.
+ Decently long, for a schmup. Doesn't take that long to play through on the easiest difficulty, but turning it up will keep you busy for a good while.
+ Local co-op.

- No online co-op
- A surprisingly resource hungry game at high video settings. Granted my hardware was only really good like 5 years ago, but I was surprised to see it dip well under 60 fps while playing on max settings.