Recent reviews by Karn

If you know me, you know that I am passionate about space. Astronomy, Astrophysics. I have acquired a lot of knowledge about everything space related, for as long as I can remember being.
So much so, that I know things that I am deeply terrified about. I have dug too deep in search for knowledge, that I have become cursed of knowledge. I covered up the hole I have dug, wishing I could forget what I have learned. I do not often talk about it, because as much as I love space, it also makes me extremely uncomfortable.
"Hostile" does not even begin to describe it. It is lucky that we are. It is unlucky that we have to witness. Space is inevitable.

If you're not scared of space, Outer Wilds will teach you to be scared of it. If you're scared of space, Outer Wilds will show you that you have every right to be. Space is TERRIFYING. Space is inevitable.
But for all that we know, we know that we know nothing at all. Perhaps this is comforting to some.

It is hard to talk about Outer Wilds without spoiling it. It is an experience that you just have to get into, and let it take you.
I knew NOTHING of the game before I got into it. And I highly recommend you do the same.

What I can say is that Outer Wilds does exploration right. You're set off to do as you want, equipped with a tiny spaceship. As you explore, you suddenly find yourself on a path. The more you play the more you keep unravelling the information given to you. There are so many "AHA!" moments when there's finally that clue that can lead you onwards somewhere else. The mental connections you are tasked to make are WILD. But not once was I dissatisfied with it. There are no tools other than those you were given at the start, to finish the game. Only knowledge is your key. Which is why, once you finish it, you have finished it for good. You will not forget.

The world itself is beautifully crafted, with an underlying physics simulation that is unlike any other I have seen before. I wish I could go into more detail here, but even the physics simulation itself holds a little secret of its own, which I only understood fairly late into the game.
Having a little knowledge about astrodynamics can also help you along (keyword is "gravitational slingshot"). Either way, you will learn. And that's the beauty of it really.

The story, much like space, is as beautiful as it is terrifying. A thing I have only heard recently is that (unrelated to the game): "The only difference between a fearful man and a brave man is that the brave man faces his fears head on. You think he has no fear, but in truth he is no less afraid than you are. He is terrified out his mind. Is he so much different than you then?"
I find this is very fitting for Outer Wilds. I found myself at multiple stages where I was like "Well... I can stay here and know no better. Or I can go right at it and see if I can find out more." Space is inevitable.

Most of the negative reviews only complain about the fact that this game has no offline mode and that there are cosmetic microtransactions.

This game is pretty fun! Having played a lot of Gang Beasts before, Animal Party feels very refreshing to the genre! Fun and solid mechanics, A LOT of very cute characters and 20 well designed maps! Hoping there's more coming for the future!

Rarely I've felt a game being such a waste of my time.
And don't get me wrong: I love many walking simulators, I love story-heavy games.

TvoEC is a Walking Simulator type game. It has a very nice looking environment and nice music.
That's it for the good parts.

Once you start the game, it warns you that it will not hold your hand. Apparently this also implies that the world design is just horrible and you spend the majority of it walking aimlessly around, looking for things to interact with. Most of the time it felt like you were punished for exploring too far out. I finished this game in 3 and a half hours, and the important bits can be cut down to just one hour.

The story starts off mysterious. A kid running from his family that tries to murder him, but end up murdering each other instead, always quoting some kind of higher entity called "the sleeper". So you run around, do all these puzzles and solve all the murders and wonder what the ♥♥♥♥ this "sleeper" is everyone keeps mentioning. Why is it here, what does it want?

The ending can be dumbed down to "but it was all just a dream!" None of it was real and none of it made any sense.
That's it.

For a final kick in the nuts, there's an achievement you can get only after you finish the game. So you go find a pinecone, you go to a very specific spot in the vast open world, you throw it into the water, go to another very specific spot in the vast open world, and you discover a dead diver with a sniper rifle. Achievement unlocked.
Oh you wanted an explanation for any of this?
Nono, there isn't any. That's it. You did it.
If anything, this achievement tells exactly how I felt about the game.

I really don't understand what people are praising this game for. What is a story-heavy type game when the story is just so weak?
It's a waste of time.

This game serves best as a screenshot simulator.

It is very rare that I complete a game to 100% and... I just want MORE of it.
And this isn't meant as a "wait, that's it?" Quite the contrary: There was plenty to do! And yet I wanted to do more of it! It didn't become boring at all!

In Dredge you control a little fishing boat. You go fish, earn money, buy upgrades, fish even more, earn more money, earn more upgrades... It's a gameplay loop that gets easily addicting. Everytime you dock you're that one step closer to the upgrade you've been eyeing for a while. But even then, each upgrade feels very carefully calibrated to not give you an immediate advantage. It takes practice and knowledge to pick out what's good for your current task and equipment.
Even after I have acquired all possible upgrades, there doesn't seem to be a definitive "best" way to equip your ship. You have to make your cuts and sacrifices!

But this isn't a simple "happy go lucky" fishing game. Dredge has a dark tone to it. Just through the intro sequence you realise that something is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.
And no further than your first night, you will begin to understand. With your lights out in the darkness of the ocean and becoming ever more tired, fear starts to creep up. And once you panic, the sea will show you its true horror. You will be punished for trying to fish for more than you deserve.

Imagine with all of that satisfying gameplay there's even a mysterious story to follow. Dredge will only reveal small bits and pieces of what you need to know at a time... It keeps you wondering, wanting to explore and wanting to understand. Until the very end, I did not understand. But then you have to make a decision between good or bad.

The bad ending is absolutely incredible! With the general tone of Dredge, it feels like the bad ending is more true to the writer's mind. True to the horror. I loved it!
The good ending was more of an "...Oh." It's fine, but it lacks the edge to make me feel anything about it.

Also, I love the music. It feels weirdly nostalgic, like an old classic from older videogames.
I think most of all, the music REALLY fits this game. It's weird to explain, but between all this horror it also has this calm, but melancholic tint to it. It is dark, but it is not necessarily horror. The soundtrack is not forced into a mold to fit a theme. It's its own theme.

By the way, I got 100% completion and all achievements at ~20 hours of playtime. At 25€ cost, I do not regret paying that price. Dredge is a fantastic game, absolutely worth its total price.

If you got about 2 hours to spare, make sure you do it with this one.
It's been a while since I played that game. But every time I just think about it, it brings me to tears.

This game allows you to play purely with your mouse; the webcam is OPTIONAL. It advertises strongly on you needing a webcam to play it, and while it adds to the experience, I feel it's not necessary.

Now this game is another one heavy on the story side. What I almost love more than the game itself is the music. Its implementation of the webcam is unique, but that's about it for gameplay. You're just there to witness, and tell your story.

You have died. A ferryman fishes your soul out of an eternal sea. While you're travelling, he wants to hear your story. What do you remember of your life? What made your life so great? What made your soul so valueable?
So you go back to the very beginning... and you start telling your story. About the decisions you've made. How you grew up. What interests you've had. The people you've met and loved. The life you pursued and the dreams you chased.
This story filled me with all sorts of emotions. It was so fun, and colorful! So happy and loving! It almost makes you sad for how perfect it all was.
But... this is life. You will find that good things can't always stay this way.
And it is frightening. It is very, very frightening. I swear I have never seen any game deliver the feeling of death as strongly as this one. It took my breath away.

In the end, it helped me. To understand; all of this.
This game delivers a message most powerful. If you are struggling, take a seat, and take a look within.

WRoEF is a Walking Simulator type game. As such it is much heavier on the story side than it is on the gameplay side.
And it makes it even more difficult to talk about this game without spoiling the whole thing. So I will try to keep it as brief as possible.

I've finished and got 100% of the achievements in 2,7 hours of playing the game. At an original price of 18,99€ that is simply bollocks. Definitely wait for a sale, and definitely buy it then. After all, it will be worth your time. It has a very meaningful story and a beautiful soundtrack not to forget. This game talks heavily about the topic of death, so be aware.

You are playing as Edith Finch, the last survivor of the Finch Family. You are returning to the house you grew up in as a child. This house keeps many secrets, and the circumstances of your family were always kept a mystery as well. With only you left, there's much left to unpack.
Every family member has their own room, that after they die will be sealed forever. Finding your way into those rooms reveals what kind of people they were, and you are replaying their latest memories as they've perceived them.

I think the word that describes this game best is "bittersweet". There's something so beautiful about uncovering all the stories, walking through this beautiful house and reliving all those memories of each family member... and yet they all end in a tragedy, all for their own reasons.
While this is a Walking Simulator, each memory you play features different game mechanics. In one memory you sail a ship, in another you may play a frog, in yet another you hop across trees! Every memory is very unique and it feels very, very personal to each character.
For a game that took me under 3 hours to complete, it is amazing how I remember all of it. Every character, every story and every name. It has a fantastic, memorable delivery.

I only wish it was longer.

[No spoilers]

Cyberpunk is an FPS RPG, much like Borderlands.
Story progresses by RPG style questlog. Got weapons & armor with certain stats and abilities. Got a whole skilltree with a wide variety of playstyles, namely: Assault, Handguns, Blades, Athletics, Annihilation, Street Brawler, Crafting, Engineering, Breach Protocol, Quickhacking, Ninjutsu, Cold Blood.
I played on hard difficulty and skilled mostly into Breach Protocol and Quickhacking, with Handguns and Ninjutsu as close seconds.

First of all, I definitely like the aesthetics of this game. The details in this world are RICH AF. No one place looks like the other, every place is recognisable. Eventually you come to know the streets without looking at the GPS, which is incredible for a world of that size.
Cyberpunk takes place in a alternate universe setting called "Night City" in the year of 2077. I mention alternate universe, because it separates from our real world in that the Cold War between USA and Russia in 1990 ended up with Megacorporations taking over. This is a gross simplification, as there is seriously a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of lore. But it becomes most obvious as seeing that the technology from 2023 is incredibly advanced from ours.

The story of Cyberpunk is definitely its strongest trait though. For that alone I definitely recommend playing it. Set in a gritty, dark, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up world, reigned by turbocapitalism. CD Projekt Red is not too shy to touch onto some of life's darkest subjects, that most game companies rather tend to avoid: Sex, Drugs, Pornography, Prostitution, Sickness, Slavery, Rape, Child Predators, Mutilation, Snuff, Suicide; the list goes on. And I just LOVE it; the bluntness of it all. No taboos, not covering it up with flowers and happy endings. Even the topic of death itself plays a major role in this game, in a way that feels more relatable and personal than other media tend to portray.
Also I love the characters in this game, each in their own way. Great designs, great personalities, great developments.
Aside of that, there are 3 intros to the game, each of which are majorly different and impactful to the story. And there are 4 different endings, +2 "failed endings", +1 secret ending, which are VERY different from each other. Not the typical "Red, Blue or Green" type of endings, but seriously impactful and rich in detail. I am talking +1 hour scenes of epilogue for each.

As for the gameplay, it's decent. Can't tell if it was because I played on hard difficulty, or my playstyle, or why else it did feel off sometimes. The skills and abilities are fun. Combat is fun. But not fun enough for me to get out of stealth and start blasting. And sometimes you were just forced to do that, when stealth wasn't an option. And maybe it was just then that I felt very out of place, because full on assaults is not what I had skilled my character for. I found there were some sidemissions that did force you into different playstyles every now and then, most notably the street brawling.
I read many complaints about vehicle road performance... And I would agree, if it wasn't for my Xbox controller that I had plugged in at all times. Using that you can seamlessly switch over and drive with that. Keyboard definitely feels a little wonky.

Last but not least: Performance of the game is good. Experienced a few crashes here and there. But nothing major and nothing gamebreaking.

As someone who loves Mordhau (+150 hours), I will make direct comparisons to it in this review, for other fellow Mordhau players.

Customisation:
Chivalry has 4 distinct classes, with 3 sub-classes each, which you have to unlock through earned XP during Gameplay. Effectively limiting you to 12 builds.
Every sub-class has its own perks.
Armors are purely of cosmetic nature.
Every class is bound to use specific weapons, which you can only switch on the class select screen during matches.
Everyone who played Mordhau may find this rather sad, as it prevents you from playing Bards, Memes, experimental builds or creating a custom class entirely. It certainly takes away from the unique experience that Mordhau provides. Time will tell if the Chivalry Community will find similar means of engagement.

Gameplay:

Short version:

Long version:
The controls are almost exactly the same to Mordhau.

Now what I didn't realize at first, and felt like the game was "unresponsive", is that your mouse movement DOES NOT control the direction of your swing. Surely you can move your hips to accelerate or delay your swings, but by purely pressing M1 you will always initiate a swing attack from the right, and your second M1 swing will always come from the left. You can only change your first swing by holding the ALT key while pressing M1, to initiate the swing from the left.
But what possibly makes up for it, is your ability to charge your attacks into a heavy attack. These attacks come with a significant delay for increased damage, which additionally to your hip movement, add a layer of variety that Mordhau does not have.
Much like in Mordhau, you can combo and feint all types of attacks into a different one.
I also really appreciate that a block can be held, no matter the weapon. Your block has its own "stamina", which can either be broken with consecutive attacks, or a kick. Besides, shields can be damaged and even completely destroyed, which gives a lot more leverage against turtles.
In Mordhau, you would find that dodging is bound to a perk. But in Chivalry any class can dodge.
The chambers you would know from Mordhau are different in Chivalry. In Chivalry, "Chambers" (called "Counters") are initiated by blocking, before you hit them with the same attack that they are winding up. So Chambers happen less on accident, and must be thoughtfully prepared.
Now, unique to Chivalry 2, they have introduced "Jabs". Jabs are like quick punches, which can be used to cancel an enemies attack during their windup. They add an element of variety that I wished Mordhau could use as well.
Every weapon comes with a so called "special attack", which is an attack simply executed by a single press of that assigned key. Special attacks deal more damage. For example, the special attack of the Longsword is the infamous "Mordhau". The attack can not be used in a combo. I guess they tried, but it feels very lackluster compared to the Alternative Grip of Mordhau, which can be used at will.
Throwing weapons feels weird in Chivalry. I feel very confident in my throwing abilities in Mordhau, where the items you throw have a certain weight and feel to them. But for Chivalry I'm not even sure if they use a proper physics engine for the projectiles. They feel like whatever you throw is on a destined pre-calculated path. And with that weird foggy trail it draws, you can barely see if you were close to hitting your target or not. It's very hard to tell the distance/time your projectile has travelled. Which, I do remember, is the same issue I had with Chivalry 1.


I find that the exchange of hits, blocks and counters is a lot more fluid compared to Mordhau. On the other hand, combat also feels much less precise and hitboxes seem to be a lot larger.
It makes sense, considering that armor is of cosmetic nature. You have less reason to aim for specific body parts, with the exception of heads.
Personally, I feel like the stamina is way too high. Compared to Mordhau, I rarely ever look at the Stamina bar in Chivalry. I just don't feel worried about the drain.


Summary:
I would say that Chivalry aims for a broader audience, as it takes a more "Arcade" approach to the FPS-Slasher genre; and that's perfectly fine. I see it like a comparison from one FPS-Shooter game to the other FPS-Shooter game: They take the same controls, they play the same setting, but they have their own distinct features that separate the two.

Personally I prefer Mordhau, but Chilvary is a game that I definitely can and will recommend to everyone who tried and loved Mordhau. You will enjoy it!

78 hours ago I bought Gas Station Simulator. I became instantly addicted.
I've played it for 26 hours.
I have 100% completed the game.

I don't know what happened, but I liked it.

An absolute MUST-HAVE for any VR Gamer. Great at showing what's possible with VR and extremely fun!