Recent reviews by Jake

A good handful of years back, I found a small spark of joy in an otherwise unpleasant time in my life in the form of a little game called Starfighter: Disputed Galaxy made by a talented developer called Ben who had made a handful of other charming webgames, I spent most of my free time with my school friends roaming the galaxy; trying to chart out where the best mining spots are, grinding out for the bigger ships, the occasional PvP skirmish. It had a lot of spirit, considering it was a free flash game.

Alas, where there is fun, there are those who try to ruin it. Hackers were steadily becoming more common in the PvP sectors, and every so often servers would go down due to attacks. The final blow was dealt when hackers managed to wipe the servers entirely, taking all of our accounts and hard work with it. Understandably, Ben decided that Starfighter had run its course, and chose to focus on other projects.

But the community didn't vanish.
We continued to play, without our accounts. We could no longer save our progress but we could still access the game on the sites that hosted it. Our databases remained active; full of all the information we had gathered over the years. We used whatever means necessary to communicate, because even though we could no longer meet up or battle with (or against) each other, just knowing other players were out there made the game still feel like home.

Over time the sites still hosting the game started to remove it and it was starting to look like the beginning of the end.

And then Ben asked if we would be interested in kickstarting a sequel.

Hell yeah.

Now, I've only just gotten ahold of my Steam key (even though I'm six months late to the punch Ben had no issues helping me get caught up), but from what I can see, the game is just as I remember and then some. We got;

- A soundtrack faithful to the original, but updated, refreshed.
- The original sound effects that'll give any SF:DG player a nostalgia wave in a heartbeat, every time.
- Graphics that take the simplistic beauty of the original game and crank it into overdrive. I was blown away when Ben made the game truly 3D... and then the madlad added VR SUPPORT.
- The game runs like a dream thus far, and I'm on a REALLY old computer (in fact, it's the same computer I played SF:DG on years ago)
- That same old community that cherished the game all those years ago. The gang's all here, and they're hard at work exploring the new galaxy.
- Buttloads of plans, ideas, suggestions and feedback being implemented constantly.
- A passionate and dedicated developer whom I and many others are blessed to have.

I'm allowing comments on this review because I want to hear from anyone who played Disputed Galaxy and your history with the game.

Come for the beautiful landscape, interesting survival mechanics, wonderful soundtrack, and challenging combat... and stay for the pearbirds.

TL;DR - This game is hot garbage. I had more fun playing the Roblox Naruto RP game mode and that didn't cost me a week's wages.

The character customization is hot garbage. You just pick from pre-existing assets in random colors. It's not even an extensive list; there are plenty of hairstyles, eyes, clothes, etc that they could've used but instead we've got 8 different colors of hidden leaf jackets. Only way to get new clothes is through scrolls that'll give you the same 10 items over and over. You might as well just play as one of the original characters, except...

The roster is hot garbage. Twenty characters, with no variants of these characters. No Sage-mode/KCM1/KCM2/Six-paths Naruto, just a plain old Naruto. No different variants of Sasuke, Itachi, Kakashi, nobody. Plenty of integral and heavily-desired characters are missing (Minato, Madara, the Kages, Sannin, etc). It's speculated that these characters are being withheld as DLC which, I don't even need to tell you is just the gaming equivalent of cancer that Bandai is doing its best to spread to every corner of the gaming market. By the way, there's only five maps. £65, by the way.

Moveset customization is hot garbage. each of the 4 types have two or three extremely similar types of weapons (that of course come in various colors like loveshade pink) that you CANNOT use on other classes. What, you wanted to be a healer AND use a greatsword? Get outta here. Same goes for jutsu; you can't cross-use ANY jutsu. It makes sense for things like healing jutsu to stay on healers, but there's things like Almighty push (area-of-effect knockback) that is locked to one type, even though other classes have similar or even near-identical moves.

The balancing is hot garbage. You're going to be seeing a LOT of Kirin because that's one of the few abilities that you can reliably aim and actually deal damage with (and by deal damage I mean one-shot whoever is in it). Some of the few jutsus in the game that actually seem unique and interesting just simply aren't viable because they almost never work. Shadow Paralysis jutsu would be AWESOME to work with friends if only it ever connected with an opponent. Maybe because...

The lock-on is hot garbage. Ever wanted to look at a stone wall REALLY CLOSELY? Well, how about right when your opponent is next to you and pushes you into a corner and your camera gets stuck! Makes it impossible to figure out what's going on or how to react. Not that it'll matter because...

The connectivity is hot garbage. My connection is fine. Almost everyone I've spoken to has the same issues; running across a rooftop and suddenly you're actually 20 feet in the air inside a giant meteor. Trying to chakra jump will randomly cause you to fall off the ledge you were stood by instead. Or you'll land where you were aiming only to zip back a few meters onto the side of a building. Sometimes matches will simply end abruptly and you're kicked back out to the lobby. Which sucks because...

The PvP ladder, the thing they sacrificed a good roster, good PvE/co-op experience, and everything else for, is a steaming pile of hot garbage. At almost every rank, you will gain points whether you win or lose. There's no penalty for defeat. This severely cheapens the purpose of climbing the ladder in the first place, if you even can at all. I say that because, you ARE penalized for "disconnecting". And by disconnecting, I mean, if the match disconnects itself, if the game crashes, or if the game simply doesn't load the results screen. And the punishment is a stacking point loss. Every time this happens, you lose 100 points for every time you've "disconnected". Spent an hour playing with friends on a winning streak, and then lost ALL the progress I had made to the top rank by one match disconnecting. There's literally no incentive to play the PvP mode which is the only "appealing" part of the game.

And, just because I don't feel like these need much explanation;
- PvE missions are trash. Kill a few mobs, go to the next area, sit through cutscene. OR they're pumped with artificial difficulty.
- Buggy as hell. Gravity stops working properly sometimes. Your character also randomly drops like an anvil and is stuck in a "rolling up off the floor" animation in mid-air as you fall to your death from the top of the map.
- Hub world is bland. Nothing to explore, not much to interact with. Looks sorta pretty for a while but that's it.
- Maps feel uneven and one side spawns closer to buff scrolls. Maps with death pits are nightmares.
- I hate my life.

This game is apparently getting a PvE event tomorrow. If it doesn't come with at LEAST a rework for PvP "disconnections" then I'm going to request a refund and never touch this game again.

UPDATE: I tried this game out a few weeks ago to see if it had improved at all. My character was gone with all my first season rewards for somehow hitting S rank despite the game doing its best to not let me. The tutorial is now even longer and forces you to queue up for a 4-man free-for-all that took 15 minutes to find a match with 2 other players, one of which turned out to be a hacker and the other lagged around like he was playing from the moon and also torrenting terabytes of porn. I cannot comment on any other changes to the game as I was too busy vomiting on my keyboard to continue playing.

Needless to say, I still don't recommend this pile of garbage.

Now that the sequel has been announced I figured I'd write a review for what is perhaps my most favorite game of the past few years.

Killing Floor is a brilliant FPS survival horror, and perhaps the best (At least in my opinion) wave-based game out there. The game has a balance of gritty and serious environments and witty and morbid humor. The idea that you are working your way through a horde of genetically engineered monsters to finally go toe-to-toe with the final boss gives you that sense of achievement. And going toe-to-toe with the final boss is an achievement in itself; with traits from all other specimen combined and then some, you'll need a lot of bullets.

A key aspect of Killing Floor is co-op. with seven different perks to play as that fill different roles in a team, you're gonna have a hard time doing it alone. Synergy with other players is key; you could just as easily doom another player as opposed to helping them. There is a lot more to the game than it seems at first glance. All of the specimen have different nuances and behavioral quirks that you will need to learn to survive. Fortunately the Beginner mode is very forgiving so you have plenty of opportunity to get some practice in. However, the difficulty curve is like a brick wall; it's not uncommon for even veteran players to fall to the horde on even the lower difficulties.

The game is very community-driven. There are a lot of custom content for the game which is fully supported, and even some of the DLC and updates are filled with community-created content. You can expect new maps, weapons, enemies, characters, game modes and mutators.

Despite being an old game it still looks beautiful and has an incredible soundtrack. There is plenty of content for this game and the only people I wouldn't suggest this game to are the squeamish.

(SPOILER FREE) Very, very good game - Not so good port.

If we were to focus on the porting of the game rather than the game itself then we'd get nowhere, as there's not a lot to say and not much of it good. So instead, I will focus mainly on the game itself from my experience with the Console editions, and later tie that in with the PC port.

So, as anyone who has played a game in the STORM series knows, it is the go-to series for a true-to-the-anime experience. Everything is there; the beautiful graphics, the original voice actors, the story, everything. Even the tiny details you wouldn't normally catch (Such as Tobi's subtle and goofy taunts), are present. It's really what the anime would look like if it were real.
STORM 3 was a massive step up from its predecessor, Generations, in that it took the new mechanics and elements brought to the table and refined them further, and over a year after release there are still new mechanical tactics being discovered or used in entirely new ways. There are more ways to fight in STORM 3 than there were before; many viable combinations of characters and playstyles. Although it seems at times that some are more useful or practical than others, typically it lies down to individual cunning to overcome what is ahead of them.
The story is faithful to the anime (Up until a certain point, however the anime hadn't got to this point yet so it's understandable), and really makes you feel as if you were in the Naruto universe. My main gripe is the endless chains of cutscenes, with no option to skip them all, as there is a loading sequence between each one. I love the cutscenes as they are stunning, especially with Full Burst's revamped graphics, but they lose their impact if you're replaying the story mode. It would be nice to be able to skip them all without loading up each one.
Aside from the main story, there are side missions aplenty, allowing you to learn a little more about the other characters in the universe that still tie in to the main story. Very good for anyone who enjoys the other characters and want to see more of them.
The soundtrack to the game is reminiscent of the anime and equally as awesome. No complaints what-so-ever about the audio, as it's been spot on in all of the STORM games and I'm a huge fan of each OST. (My personal favorites were STORM 2's "White hot battle at the summit" and "The Uchiha Hideout" stage music.)

Another reason people are drawn to the series is for the multiplayer. Sadly, with exception to the new roster and mechanics, STORM 3 did not bring much new to the table that was exclusive to the multiplayer, however they did take what was already there and make it just that bit better. For example, whilst there are now thousands of possible ninja info card and title choice to choose from, none of this is visible to other players unless it's a 1v1 fight. It subtracts a lot of the motivation to unlock these cards and then spend time personalizing it when there are only two modes in which people can even see it, and even then it's only for a few seconds before both players prepare to begin character selection.

As for the non-1v1 modes, Tournaments or Endless, Both modes had a new feature added, but neither of them were really that interesting.
Nobody plays elimination Endless (A mode where you keep playing until you lose, at which point you are kicked from the lobby) because people join endlesses to play mutliple matches with a group of people over a period of time, and being ejected from the lobby for losing, or having your opponents ejected when you win, is just like playing 1v1 modes except with a waiting list.
As for Perpetual tournaments (Tournaments where each match has two stipulations that affect both players), they can still be interesting, however the feature just wasn't taken advantage of. There could have been countless possibilities for different rules and options. They could've made it so one player is affected by one rule whilst the second player is only affected by the second one. They could have also added in many more rules, too, however you'll usually have seen it all after your 3rd or 4th tournament.

The Ranked mode has also gotten considerably worse; CyberConnect2 sacrificed a lot to try and keep the game balanced, and ultimately it went to waste as there are still the small stable roster of characters and supports you'll see in the majority of your matches (Looking at you, Kimimaro and Neji.) however unlike the past games, balancing patches have been brought out to try and quell this, however most players still stick to the familiar "meta" teams.
Disconnections (Or Ragequits) were an issue CC2 attempted to address, however there still seems to be literally no penalty for people disconnect often, as there are players with thousands of disconnects and people still play against them. Some people actually take pride in their disconnection frequencies now that they have no limit.
Essentially, CC2 is concerned about punishing legitimate players who accidentally disconnect, however that's exactly what's happened now; I'm still getting disconnects just like someone who ragequits. If they would just give disconnecters a loss and, or heck, even JUST give the other player a win, then nobody would be bothered by disconnections at ALL.

But not all multiplayer must be online - The offline multiplayer is fantastic. All of the tournament features are available for offline use, and with addition of Full Burst; there are plenty of challenging missions which actually net you some nicely-made wallpapers. Each battle has unique stipulations, which further begs the question of why they didn't include them in the tournament mode.

Another unforseen but very welcome addition only possible due to the PC port is the inclusion of mods. Sadly is there no official support for mods - yet (wink wink) - however the community has still managed to bring some incredible content to the table, such as unlocking characters that were once unplayable and actually caused CC2 to recieve a bit of backlash for not including. There are new costumes, new stages, new characters, new movesets, you name it.

Sadly that's where the good news stops when it comes to the PC port. On launch, the game was plagued with a terrible bug that rendered the online mode nearly unplayable. It took a rather long time to fix, but it was eventually fixed. There were also many crashes during the story mode, however one still remains as of writing this. It appears that CC2 is eager to co-operate with its community though so I expect that these issues shan't persist forever.
Another problem were the very high system requirements. Although understandable for such a stunning and complex engine, it was rather disappointing to many people that the game simply couldn't run, especially due to the very little amount of graphical settings available to the user.

With that being said, here is my conclusion;

+ Brilliant graphics.

+ Perfect OST

+ Faithful to the anime

+ Very easy to pick up and play

+ Huge and active fanbase

+ Mountains of content of all kinds

+ Community-driven developers

- PC port was rather disappointing

- Too much focus on a "balanced" online mode which didn't end up being balanced, often at the sacrifice of other, much more enjoyable features

- No official support for mods despite a thriving modding community

- poorly optimised

Overall, I love this game, and this series. I have put thousands of combined hours into the entire series on PC and consoles.There are definitely glaring issues or places where they could've really put some work in and made something incredible, however everything else that is expected of the STORM series is met in spades. I cannot wait for the next STORM game and can only pray that CC2 keep up their level of community interactivity and keep on improving on constructive feedback.