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I haven't played a whole lot of this game, but I can already tell that it's a return to form for the franchise. It's unfortunate that Square Enix decided to try a new business model with it, because it seems to have killed its sales potential.

Definitely buy the full version and play, though.

There's not much I can say about this game that hasn't been already said. It's a world simulation in the same vein as Thief and Deus Ex or more recently, Bioshock, Dishonored, and Prey. It's difficult to put into words how well this game draws you into its world; everything feels genuine, the levels don't feel like game levels, they feel like real places. It has the same kind of design as a survival horror game, so by the end, you'll know the entire ship like the back of your hand and have it cemeted into your memory.

I believe Deus Ex(released just 2 years after, by many of the same people) did most of what this game did, better, but I think it's safe to say this is one of the most inflential games ever made. Bioshock was released 8 years later and basically does nothing this game doesn't and it was hailed as one of the best games of all time.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but this is a game that absolutely everyone should play through.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fantastic, but women are substantially easier to turn on than this game is.

I have to start it with OpenGL that does not work, let it crash, switch it to Vulkan in the config, start it again, let it crash again, then when I restart it it works. Repeat the entire process when I want to play it again.

Game: 10/10
Game: Why/10

Update since finishing the game:

Wonderful stealth game with pacing and narrative issues that are extremely hard to reconcile. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is by far the closest any game has gotten to nailing the level design of the first game in the series; the complexity of some of the levels here is mind-blowing, the amount of ways to get to your objective gets ridiculous at times. My biggest complaint about Human Revolution was the size and simplicity of its levels, they followed the spirit of the original, but refused to let you off your leash until the last few hours and even then, it never met the scope of Deus Ex. Mankind Divided doesn't just improve on this, it's more than I ever could have imagined.

Sadly, it's made extremely clear that the rumors of restructuring in Square Enix were true, because this is effectively the villiage idiot of the series, writing-wise. The components of a good story are there, but they're just splattered all over the floor like a bowl of mom's spaghetti. It feels like this is the first act of a proper Deus Ex game slowed to a crawl with some hints of a failed attempt to give it a traditional narrative structure. This will step on some toes, but it sort of reminds me of The Fellowship of The Ring; it's not really an independent work and if you try to consume it that way, it feels extremely flawed, it's relying on the reader caring more about finding out what happens next than the fact that they just read 450 pages of exposition and nothing else. About 90% of what you'll take away from this game's story are unresolved questions, which is disappointing considering that we know Eidos Montreal's writing staff is talented, it can even be seen in this game's side missions. Something obviously went wrong here and I'm feeling like it's on the business side of things.

Currently this game gets an honorary Best/Worst Game I've Ever Liked award.

Original Review: Everything is in place...

Very fun, plays like a smoother version of the last game. Level design is fantastic, the first level is larger than Omega Ranch from the last game. Many things from the original Deus Ex make a return, like Biocells, Multi-Tools, and multiple ammo types. In short if you want more Human Revolution, play this, if you haven't played Human Revolution, play that, then play this. UPDATE: Interesting how Human Revolution matched New York and Hong Kong in the original one and Mankind Divided is almost entirely based on the France section of the original. It includes the large portions in the sewers.

There are apparently microtransactions, but I haven't actually encountered them in my time with the game. If I hadn't seen them on Reddit, I probably wouldn't know they existed.

Performance is good, but the game is very demanding. You'll need to tune settings for your machine and unless you're running a top of the line PC, you probably won't be playing with things like MSAA and Tesselation. Don't buy this and get pissy because you can't just hit ultra and start playing. Several people are complaining about black screens, but I haven't experienced this personally. UPDATE: New patch has given me 2 crashes in 4 or so hours.

No matter how many times I get angry and quit, I can't bring myself to play anything but this.

General recommendation is that if you enjoyed 2013's Tomb Raider reboot, then you'll probably enjoy this too, because it's mostly the same.


I usually judge sequels based on how well the developer understands what was good about the previous title, this game passes with flying colors. It balances linear combat sections, open exploration areas with puzzly bits really well; I haven't found myself overwhelmed with extensive combat sections that were common in the last game. Features function better and are more fleshed out, but the game at its core is enjoyable for the same reasons as the 2013 game, just with added polish and experience.

They seem to have embraced stealth a little more, but I wouldn't consider it a stealth game, because it's ridiculously easy. You still have no control over crouching and bushes(a la assassins creed) are your only consistent hiding place. Enemies are painfully stupid with detection even on harder difficulties, but this is an adventure game and not a stealth game so it's mostly nit picking.

The equipment upgrading and character progression make a return and function mostly the same as last time. It seems like there are more options, but there's nothing monumentally different from the last game's skills and upgrades. They've complicated resource gathering, so there are actual resource types aside from the "scrap" from the previous game. Hunting animals is now required to upgrade gear, because they drop items you need. Usually it's just a basic skin, but higher level animals(a buck, for instance) have higher level skins and rare animals drop unique skins. You'll definitely feel some Far Cry 3 influence here, but it's not blatant copying like we've seen in other games in the last few years.

Not very far into the story, so I can't judge, but many will be pleased to hear that the origin story feel is almost entirely gone.

Will update as I get through the game.

Oh, Metal Gear Solid V, what a conundrum you are.
This is probably the best stealth game I have ever played. It takes the architectural level design of Thief and Deus Ex and combines it with the mechanics of a Splinter Cell game. It expands on the freedom of approach through an ever expanding set of tools that was seen in Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3. The fulton extracting and base building is carried over from Peace Walker, which works much better in an open world setting. From a pure gameplay standpoint, The Phantom Pain is near perfection.
Nearly all of the game's problems lie in narrative and method of delivery.
It's predecessor, Metal Gear Solid 4, contained over 8 hours of cutscenes, which ended up being the primary complaint for most people. V seems to directly respond to this by having less than 10% of the cutscenes and completely removing the Codec, but this creates a worse problem than it solved. The story itself is the same old convoluted Metal Gear, but it's forcefully crammed into short cutscenes that fail to explain anything in a coherent manner. Details and explanantions come in the form of audio logs that serve to replace the Codec from previous games, the problem is it lacks context. You'll likely listen to these entries at random times, so you end up getting important information at a point where it has become less important; at worst, you may have forgotten what they were even explaining. Overall, the story isn't bad, it's just told in the worst way possible. It's like the antithesis of The Witcher 3.

My definitive judgement of this game is that it's probably the best stealth game to come out since Deus Ex, but it's a contender for the worst game in the Metal Gear Solid franchise as a main entry.

Haven't played a ton of this game, but I know exactly where it stands.
If you enjoy well written RPGs(as in strong character development and meaningful choice) and aren't picky about gameplay, then this is one of the best of its kind. If you are picky about gameplay, then avoid it entirely, because you will absolutely hate it.

Gameplay is very good, it's something like a combination of team fortress, battlefield and an arena shooter. Strongest gamemode is objective, it's similar to Battlefield's Rush, but the maps are actually designed for it and it winds up being significantly better than Rush in the most recent Battlefield games. When the teams are evenly balanced and everyone's not playing the same class, it's a very interesting game with a lot of depth.
Big honking downside is that it sports a hero unlock system similar to League of Legends, where you have to sell your organs on the black market to get new characters. There are 2 free classes(both of which kind of suck) and you get access to 3 others that rotate week by week. I believe there are 19 in total and they cost from $6-10 a piece. All can be unlocked with in-game currency, but the system just feels off-putting because you go into the game and are instantly greeted with not being able to play 75% of the game. The currency earned seems fair and you should be able to unlock characters in a reasonable amount of time if you do missions and play every day, but it just doesn't feel nice. Also, I believe they intend to add characters which opens the game up to a LoL style "add now, nerf after everyone buys it" scheme.
The loadout cards are pretty fair, so don't fret about that, they're only cosmetic upgrades past bronze and the rest are easy to get.
I'd say try it out, if this game get a good population, I could see it getting much better.

Everyone's talking about graphics downgrades and drivers intentionally gimping older architecture... and I don't care. Why?
The games industry has been in a strange place for the last few years, development budgets are larger than ever before, yet most games lack something that they previously had: heart and soul. The Witcher 3 is the antithesis of this trend. It feels like the developers actually cared about what they were creating and that it wasn't just spat out of an Ubisoft factory somewhere.
I could boil down this game to exactly what mechanics make it fun and entertaining, why the graphics and art direction are appealing, how the character progression are fulfilling, but that would actually do a disservice to the work because it's so much more than the sum of its features.
Just play this game. Set aside some time, put on some headphones and get lost in this masterpiece.