Recent reviews by BW

BioWare is back baby! And it's so good!

Veilguard is extremely similar to Mass Effect 2, and in my opinion even better. It's still BioWare game through and through - it can be awkward, flawed and corny. I think people tend to forget that's how all their games were, and it gives them unreasonable expectations. This game is not perfect - that being said, I do believe it's peak.

It's peak at what BioWare has always been: an easy to digest experience with great companions. It's not trying to be more, and that makes it work. It's endearing, it has charm, it's fun (for the first time in Dragon Age history, the combat is enjoyable). And the companions are amazing - I'd say this is BioWare's best companion cast, or at least among the best. And the amount of interactons they have together is astounding. The rest of the game works well enough to support it, and while it can eventually reach a bit of a fall-off if you're trying to 100% it like me, I still enjoyed it enough that I plan several new playthroughs in the future.

If you're looking for an RPG that's a simple but enjoyable ride with some fictional friends, then I wholeheartedly recommend this game. This is my GOTY 2024.

Really fun expansion, another slam-dunk peak. The update is beautiful, the zones are amazing, the lore is great, the story is a lot of fun. Just a really good expansion.

This game has (had?) the potential to be one of the best fantasy strategy games of all time. I stuck with it through the difficult rushed launch, hoping for things getting better.

Instead, the devs are on radio silence, patches are infrequent, don't work and actually introduce MORE bugs for which hotfixes are nonexistent (seriously, not even hotfixes?). And then through all this they overcharge us for new content and when we get angry their official response is "look how much we're doing for this game!" ? Seriously?!

I don't usually get this pissed but the CEOs of this company need to have a think, can't even handle their actual golden goose. So much potential for this game and all wasted...

This game is somehow both incredibly fun and incredibly faithful 40k videogame. It just kicks ass.
Cogitation excitation levels: Maximum

The best Total War game since Shogun 2. Maybe even Medieval 2. Is getting a lot of love from the devs, including some of the best DLCs I ever bought. Tons of replayability (I didn't even play half of the factions properly yet, and have yet to actually finish a campaign lol), as, just like in Warhammer 1, each faction feels and plays unique (true, some less than others). It's not perfect, but I just really recommend this game to any Total War or strategy game fans, fans of the tabletop and even new players all together.

Started the game as my Slav ancestors (can't say no to Perun).
Kicked the hell out of all the nomads, including the Huns.
Almost all my neighbours left, either because of the Huns or because of climate change (amateurs can't grow crops on snow).
I stayed, fertilizing and colonizing their former lands with my superior pro gaming skills (I read the tooltips).
I built a giant prosperous empire, almost rivaling the Romans in terms of square kilometres and being more wealthy than everyone else together (and I just farm, trade amber and sell mead).
My spearmen are now more famous than Spartan hoplites and my allies are the Vikings from Kattegat (who raid and conquer the whole west coast like 400 years sooner than IRL).
Suddenly, within the Hunnic hordes (they absolutely hate me), Attila takes leaderhip.
I send him some gifts and offers, hoping to use him to push out more people so I can colonize more lands.
Also, Attila seems like a nice chap. With thousands of horse archers my spearmen can't catch.
After few years, my daughter was ready to marry. I married her to Attila.
Attila gratiously accepted, saying his people will disapprove but he cannot refuse (the Huns, including Attila, still absolutely hate me btw).
He said it like a shy high school boy who just got asked out.

10/10, Attila has crush on my daughter.

A touching story about a man struggling to wear high heels.

This game is missing the "Kill Yourself" button but otherwise plays just fine!

Few of my friends already played this game, I played the demo, so it was on my wishlist for quite some time... so yesterday I bought it. Oh man.

I knew this game was gonna be story driven and kinda dark.

It firstly appeared as the two guys talked on the staircase, but I was like, "Hey, the game is just trying to scare me off, pfff!". Then there was the weird fact that the guy we just saved was more hostile towards us than the man we saved him from, but okay, the game has some character. The postapocalyptic atmosphere was nothing new, I used to read Metro series before going to sleep, I love that!
Sure, when we failed to rescue the man AND it meant the civilians were probably going to die and the characters got all emotional over it, it was tougher, but I just thought "That's the basic 'dark game' stuff".
But then it came.
That moment.
I already got spoiled that we're going to use white phosphorus to kill some enemies and I was mentally preparing for that. I told to myself "Hey, I play dark and deep games all the time, just turn off your brain for a while and let's do this".
It was so easy. You were just pressing a button to fire. "Hey, look, the idiots are so close to each other..." ... But it started to feel bad when I saw how many of them were there "Huh, I get why it's so controversial, those will be some huge casualties".
I thought it was over. That the 'look how mature our game is' moment passed and I can get back to saving people.
Oh man, was I so wrong. SO WRONG.
After all that, you have to walk RIGHT through the battlefield you just bombed with white phosphorus. You see the men dying there... some are trying to reach you and you want to help them, but you're afraid to touch them. "Oh sh*it, is this one missing a part of his leg... oh wait, so many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dead here! This is terrible! ... Heads up, standing guy, there's gonna be a firefi-. Forgot I thought that. Forgot I thought that. This is terrible. So ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ terrible."
Oh good, cutscene, wonder what's-
And then you find out that... you killed... all the civilians. With white phosphorus. All of them are dead. You see a woman with a child. There's still a part of her face left. I wish I didn't noticed that.
Oh, and you wanna hear the best part? Really? Yeah, I mean it's really good, because the best part is IT WAS ALL ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ POINTLESS.

I haven't finished the game yet. I'm not sure if I can do that. I'm afraid to hit the play button. And I feel like I'm not even close to the end.

...
But hey, at least I finally remember what white phosphorus is. Education, I guess...
Oh god...

14/10, would step on peasants again!

"Beyond the scope of light, beyond the reach of Dark..."

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TL;DR - Buy it or skip to the conclusion

GRAPHICS
"May the Dark shine your way."

You can see this in the screenshots. Dark Souls never had mindblowing graphics, rather clever and artistic design. If you want better graphics that bad, buy the DirectX 11 version, I heard it's coming soon.
As for the design... It's good. Visually, much better than in the first game. I love it. Both environment and Fashion Souls (incredible improvement on this one).

GAMEPLAY
"Well! This is a most peculiar soul. Very good, very good indeed."

This is a big one. And a great one. Gameplay wise, there is nothing bad with this game, except few things, which are on the other hand quite big issues... Many weapons have the same movesets, and there are fewer unique movesets than in the first game, if I recall correctly. The level design looks great, but locations are short, bonfires frequent, warping is from the start of the game and routes linear. Some locations are still great, and you probably won't mind in your first playthrough, but the Drangleic Castle, for example, suffers EXTREMELY from this.
Another problem are bosses. They are generic, most of them not very entertaining or challenging. There are some exceptions and awesome bosses, just like there are awesome locations, but... well, they're exceptions.
Other than these things, and maybe few details I might have forgot, the gameplay is overall MUCH better than in Dark Souls 1. For those who haven't play it, that means - awesome.

ONLINE INTERACTIONS
"Then you will need blood, lots of it."

Co-op and PvP.
Co-op is fun and everything, nothing wrong here.
PvP... many people say that PvP is broken. But people say many things - like for example that ultra greatswords are useless and rapiers OP, and magic is OP too (when will people learn to roll?). PvP is my very favorite thing in Dark Souls, and it's pretty fun. While poise and hitboxes on some weapons worry me, overall, it's again much better than in the first game.

STORY
Plus characters & lore
"I beg of you, remember my name. For I may not myself..."

It's... different... From what you might know, from the first Dark Souls too. Characters aren't so memoriable in this game and lore... people say lore is crap compared to first Dark Souls. I respect their opinion, but I highly dissagree. Yes, we have almost no answers, much fewer stories, and many more questions. But what questions they are! Very good ones... I overall enjoyed the atmosphere from item descriptions much more... And the story? King Vendrick's umm... plan? Now that was awesome.
And that was prior to the Scholar of the First Sin. SotFS makes the game's story much better. I really like it, and thanks to that, I've come to love Dark Souls II Story & Lore.
Still could use more work on some of the characters though...

DLCs
"Many monarchs have come and gone. One drowned in poison, another succumbed to flame. Still another slumbers in a realm of ice..."

I wrote reviews on each of the DLCs, targeted for players who already know the game. But if you're thinking about buying, buy them. They're the best this game can get, furthermore, needed for some parts of the SotFS.

CONCLUSION
Game with fine visuals, awesome gameplay, enjoyable multiplayer and deep story. If you're worried about the difficulty, maybe you should not buy it. Do you have confidence, patience, reflexes and sharp mind working in the heat of battle? Good. Then, especially if you like RPGs, buy this game! It might not be the best game you ever played, but you won't regret it.

"Seek strength. The rest will follow... "

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