Recent reviews by Oliver

Decided to pick up a copy after the price was reduced for Anniversary Edition owners as some goodwill was returned. Have played less than an hour and got sent into bugsplat just navigating the menus, all of which are a downgrade compared to the original. No idea why Relic have decided to fix what's not broken here. (Edit: Sneaky Box remastered this, not Relic, my bad.)

I decided to hop into Private Exterminatus to gain a few levels before bothering other people in the main Exterminatus lobby, however after completing half a round I have gained 0 XP.
Since this was not an option, I entered a queue for the main Exterminatus lobby, after waiting about 4 minutes to find a game (the only game running in the entire world, with crossplay enabled, and there's only one person in it). On a weekend.
Onto the actual gameplay, graphically everything looks a lot better, a lot more clear and defined. The bolter sound changes are questionable but not a big deal. However, game stutters often - I have a 4080 and don't have issues with Space Marine 2 or Anniversary Edition, so once again a downgrade.
Enemy AI is still incredibly janky, and the game still pauses whenever someone leaves - the classic "Host Migration". I did not play much more as we couldn't get past the first arena as a duo with low levels and there were no other lobbies running. No one else joined either which speaks volumes about how many people actually picked up this game. It really does feel DOA even with the discount.

Overall, I'm incredibly disappointed. For what is just a graphical overhaul, I was not expecting it to come with more downsides, and if there's barely anyone to play with - it's really not worth it even with a 50% discount. The way SEGA/Sneaky Box handled this upgrade is really questionable, something which should have brought Space Marine back to life has instead reduced goodwill and split the already small playerbase. I would have perhaps offered this version as an upgrade to Anniversary Edition for 10% extra, fixed some of the bugs/janky AI and smoothed out any issues with framerates/stuttering and combined the multiplayer. Baffling decisions were made. Sorry to all the other fans out there.

Love that this game is being remastered/re-released. I cannot see that much which has changed from the original but I'm having a good time. I've already ran into several graphical bugs however, I hope these can get smoothed over;

Lotus peasants/models and some iterations of Kenji's model are completely black for me.
My cursor is often replaced by a square of terrain where the arrow should be.
I've experienced audio/visual stuttering during a campaign mission.
Game crashing as multiplayer host.

I've seen some people saying they're having issues perhaps tied to their monitor's refresh rate. My refresh rate is 144hz for reference.

It would be cool to see a few more features added, such as an ability to zoom out further, and as of yet I've not been able to get windowed-borderless to work. Additionally, I'm not sure it's currently possible to filter games in multiplayer, however I could be mistaken. That being said, nothing gamebreaking so far, so recommend this to any longterm fans.

Honestly not a bad game if you can get past the cringe operators, obviously very Bf4/2142-esque. It does suffer from people cheating but haven't experienced it that often for it to be an issue. Apparently they're working on it. Can't really go wrong given that it's free.

Definitely prefer Perseus Mandate over this expansion (the plot was somewhat better), but it's still a solid extra if you are a franchise fan. Only other downside is that you sometimes have to lower your graphics settings to get through into the next interval or you end up crashing during transition, which is quite frustrating. I experienced this slightly more than during Perseus Mandate.

I started playing the original back in 2013 and racked up over 10,000 hours before losing interest as the games pace increased exponentially. Figured I would try out PoE 2 as it seemed to be quite the service to older players who are used to mirrors being like the lottery, not something that drops 10 times a day.

I can safely say I was pleasantly surprised, the pace is good, the graphics are lush, and the campaign is interesting and not something you can (currently) speedrun in a few hours. I've seen a lot of people giving GGG flak for the difficulty, and it's not really warranted. I can only assume these players have come in later on PoE's timeline, or are used to playing other games, as the difficulty is in line with how PoE used to be - which is refreshing if nothing else. Any ledge or dock enjoyers still out there?

I would however like to make a note that I'm speaking generally about the difficulty. PoE 2's current "Labs" system revolves around completing increasingly higher numbers of waves/rooms in Ultimatum/Sanctum. Arguably two of the worst mechanics to ever be included in the previous game, both requiring specific builds to complete effectively. This is an L move in my opinion, however it gets worse, as I'd say they are both very over-tuned at the moment and full of bugs, leading to many failed or lost completions.

To be honest, the game very much feels like an extended beta, with the current EA league not transferring to standard, and many classes, acts, MTX and more - not currently in the game. Bugs are common, which is frustrating but to be expected - and many of them are being addressed. What is not being addressed however, is the current respec system, which is one of the main reasons for my negative recommendation.

If you were one of thousands of players using the only viable caster builds for the Stormweaver ascendancy, you were likely hit with a nerf that reduced the effectiveness of your build by 90%. Balance changes are to be expected, however within the first week and left without any alternative, it is somewhat unusual. Respeccing costs around 4-5k gold (per point) at level 70. To change your build after being hit by any nerfs, you'd be paying 300-500k+, which is everything you would have earned up until that point, if not more. I have heard that full respecs were promised when builds or mechanics were hit this much, but this is simply not the case.

I had an immense amount of fun playing, but it feels like a kick in the teeth and left with little option but to reroll after getting to maps, with 0 currency, with the possibility of whatever I reroll into immediately getting hit as well. I therefore can't really recommend PoE 2, at least until it's out of EA when there's a sense of permanency with the leagues, a full release of everything the game has to offer and a healthy amount of balancing that is done BEFORE inviting players back in. It has killed the experience for me - sorry.

Don't really see what the negative reviews are for. It's probably best to play this after completing the FEAR 2 campaign as the difficulty seems to be what you'd expect from later levels so it's just continuing on from that. Definitely too short compared to other FEAR DLC's but would still recommend it.

Excellent expansion, worth every penny. I can only imagine what it would have been like to play this when it initially released. Highly recommend to anyone who enjoyed playing through the first FEAR game.

So far my only complaint is the janky keybinds. Any muscle memory you have from the first game or other games is unlikely to help you here. I'd closely compare it to LOTR: Shadow of Mordor, there's a lot of different combos and buttons for different things, which is somewhat overwhelming. Other than that, it's graphically beautiful, there are no framerate issues, the story is good and the combat is good.

My CPU is quite hot and the fans are pumping a lot of air, but I also have other things running. I could see this being an issue for certain people or lower end builds but it's not as bad as some other games I've played, such as Zombie Army, and the settings can always be lowered if necessary.

Probably give this an 8.5/10, will come back later if anything changes.

Some stability improvements needing to be made as well as some more party options but I'm sure they will come with release. Overall a stunning game, not that many bugs considering it's not fully out yet, was a joy to play with friends and solo. Excited to see what the full release is like.

Fantastic addition to the Gemcraft series, I only wish I knew about it sooner.