Recent reviews by Lino

Incredibly fun with friends and a very strategic extraction shooter. Each run requires some level of coordination and strategy, which leaves each attempt feeling different from the last. My wish list of things to add:

1. Communications tools w/ randoms.
- Currently, there is no way to communicate with randoms outside of a map ping. I would like to see this changed in the future, because communication is extremely important in these types of games.

2. A clock.
- I am not sure why this game shipped without some sort of mechanism to tell you when the night rain is moving in outside of looking at the sky. 90% of the time you will be in a dungeon or some sort of castle where you can't see that and will get caught off-guard if you miss the 3 second prompt that flashes to your right. There needs to be some sort of clock/timer in this game.

3. Solo tuning
- Right now, there is a balance patch slated for the week of 6/2 for this, but as it stands it is a very poorly tuned experience. I am fortunate to have friends to play this game with, but for those times where I want to just try it solo it is a much harder experience than your standard souls game. I definitely don't think they tested this before shipping. Will check back in after the balance patch goes live.

Other than that, I am very much loving this game and looking forward to the content drops.

Special game. Must play.

I rolled credits on my hard playthrough capturing the final achievement needed for 100% and couldn't help but feel saddened that the journey was done. It's a truly special game that I enjoyed playing immensely. From the journey with the characters, to all the secrets and content. It's worth every penny and more.

I had this game sitting in my library for quite some time and the other day while recovering from being sick I decided to give it a go finally. It's a shame it took me this long to finally play it, because this game is fantastic. The world of the Talos station is incredible and fully realized in Arkane's art style. It feels closer to a Resident Evil style game with many puzzles, locked doors and hidden goodies to discover. Combat is largely "ok" and the main thing I had to get over was the lack of an ADS feature when holding guns, but once you get used to it, it's fine. The characters here are all pretty great and provide really good backstories and a lot of the background can be found in terminals through reading emails. The story feels predictable at first, but they throw enough twists and turns that make you truly think about the final choices towards the end. I also love how the game gives you many tools and choices throughout, so the playthroughs can differ. Overall, I thoroughly recommend this game.

By the time I rolled credits, I couldn't help but find myself impressed with Hideo Kojima's latest game. Admittedly, the final stretch of the game is its weakest part but by the time the story wraps up you're felt satisfied with the journey. Very much looking forward to the sequel.

I quite like what Stalker 2 has to offer and I very much enjoy the gameplay of this entry. However, after you get to the mid-point of the game the bugs become quite bad and the quality of the game really starts to deteriorate. It's gotten to the point that I'm simply just waiting for a few more patches to release before diving back in so for that reason I cannot recommend this game today. I'll change this review in the future once it's more stable in the back half of the game and I've gotten to really enjoy it.

I keep giving this game a try, but around 9 hours in the writing just feels so out of place. Most of the character dialogue feels like we're trying to aim for a younger generation instead of just having normal conversations. The story doesn't feel like it has any real stakes and most of the characters are just unlikable. I really wanted to love it, but I can't keep pushing through the story at this point because the dialogue and story just keep taking me out of it.

Silent Hill 2 brings forward an incredible survival horror game to modern consoles and PCs. This game is a masterpiece and easily the front runner for GOTY.

All the bells and whistles of the original with a fresh coat of paint. I think Capcom played it a little too safe and didn't really innovate the game when the opportunity was there to do so. I would've loved to see some features from Dead Rising 2 implemented, such as alternate weapon attacks and icons notating when a survivor is able to transition to the next area but the quality of life changes present are still a nice touch. I am not entirely sure why they opted to get all fresh new voice actors when the dialogue in cutscenes is pretty much untouched, which translates to the same lines being repeated by new voices outside of changing Cliff's dialogue and some of Kent's. I do think Dead Rising has some really good bones, so I get wanting to keep a large majority in tact, but I think the original had room to improve and they didn't try to do so here.

All-in-all, I do recommend the Deluxe Remaster, but I think Capcom played it a little too safe to the point where if you played the original the most you're getting here are new graphics and some QOL changes.

So happy to have this game freed from the shackles of exclusivity. One of the best Final Fantasy games around.