Recent reviews by GarlicBread

I got this because my gaming friends wanted to play it. It is okay, but if i'm being honest, I much prefer Left 4 Dead 2.

My main frustration is that there are simply not enough maps. It really feels like I'm just repeating the same 3 maps over and over.

Progression also feels like a chore. You have to grind quite a bit to get access to fun weapons. In my opinion, some classes start with really unsatisfying weapons and it takes several hours to get fun ones. Not to mention progression is tied to an individual character, which is tied to a class, so if you want to try out a new class, you have to start again at the bottom.

A lot of the weapons feel like peashooters (or the enemies are bullet sponges). If I shoot a grenade launcher into a horde, I expect all the basic enemies to die.

Then there are the misc issues. Pretty long loading times. REALLY bad performance/optimization. A handful of bugs scattered about.

The general aesthetic of the game is dark. Like, can barely see dark. I recommend cranking up the brightness if you play.

Also you have to pay for a lot of cosmetics. :( The game barely feels finished and they want to milk you for more money.

I'm sure if you like the Warhammer universe, there might be something here for you, but if you are just looking for a fun co-op shooter, there are much better options

This game is wonderful. I loaded it up thinking I would try it for a level or two, I was quickly hooked and ended up playing straight through the game for 3 hours straight. The gameplay is very simple but exceptionally well executed, and the devs do a great job of incorporating challenge into the game. Please do yourself a favor and play this game!

In spite of my many grievances, I have had too much fun in the game to not recommend it. You can have a lot of fun in the game if you don't take it too seriously (embrace meme plays), find a cool group of friends to play it with (custom matches are the best), and are willing to put in the time to learn the game and unlock some good perks.



I really enjoy this game. The game play is simple and easy to grasp, but there is so much depth and nuance you can dig into as you learn the game, and the game rewards deep understanding of its mechanics. I'm not a huge horror fan, but I can only imagine how cool it is to play as your favorite horror icons and see the universes cross. I love that the gameplay can be what you make it: if you want a casual game, you can focus on supporting your team with perks, gen repair, and healing; if you want a heart-pounding action game, you can get the killer's attention to buy your team time. You can also play the game as a stealth game. And of course, you can play a power fantasy game as a powerful killer. I love the co-op aspect of the game: coordinating escapes with your teammates, pulling off difficult or outright dumb stunts, and jumping in the way of the killer to save the life of your friend. I am much more of a survivor main than a killer main, but I do enjoy playing killer. Playing custom matches and killing/being killed by your friends is a joy.

sigh

But I have a few problems with the game.

• The Tedious Gameplay: A lot of the gameplay as survivor is just holding left click and occasionally hitting the spacebar. This can make it really chill for chatting with friends, but can be a bit tedious. Getting chased by the killer is definitely the more engaging part of the game, but you can also have a lot of fun getting saves for friends with a flashlight or sabotage. Killer gameplay is generally pretty fun all-around.
  
  
• The Grind: This game has a ridiculous grind. In short, each character has a particular set of perks that you may want some or all of. Your dream build may require perks from 4 different characters. In order to unlock those perks to be used on everyone, you much spend about 1,000,000 bloodpoints (bp) to unlock the teachable version of each character's perks. That's 4 mil bp in order to unlock the perks you want, plus possibly an additional million or more in order to get those perks onto the character you want them on. The order you can unlock perks on a character is random, and contributes a lot to the grind. So, for your dream build on your dream character, you will need ~4 million bp. To give you an idea how much that is, I would say on average i get 20,000 bp per survivor match and 50,000 bp per killer match. If you are grinding for those points as a survivor, that's roughly 200 matches worth of points. If you assume matches of 15 min and ignore queue times (ha) you have roughly 50 hours to grind those points. Now there are bonuses, unlocks, perks, and offerings that can help mitigate the grind, but they all require your playstyle to bend towards grinding for points (running bp farming perks), and I think that detracts from gameplay. Assume you do all the farming tricks, and you play killer to earn faster, and we give a gracious assumption that you double your earning constantly. Then it is 10 hours to get the perks from 4 of the characters in the game ( there are 55 characters , as of writing), and set up a build you want, but that is just one build with little variety. Want to try another cool perk? That's another million bp to get it. Want to get all your favorite perks that you already unlocked on a new killer? That is an additional 1-2 mil bp. You can see why it is frustrating. And we haven't even talked about specific items or addons you might want to get. Custom mode is lots of fun because all perks and items are unlocked for it, but you need a group of friends if you want to play customs. TL;DR Really long grind, you can have fun before you get everything you want, but variety is hidden behind the grind.
  
  
• The Queue Times: If you want to play as survivor in the evenings with your friends, expect to wait 5-10 minutes between matches. Once you find a match, the game takes about another 3 minutes to load everyone in to be able to play. Don't be surprised if something bugs and you get booted from the pre-match lobby and you and your friends need to queue all over again.
  
  
• The Bugs: Tons and tons of bugs, sometimes game-breaking. You can expect the matchmaking to crap out on you at least once every few hours. I remember a Halloween event that made it impossible to load into the game occasionally, so everyone would have to completely relaunch the game. You will also find game items that you can't interact with (that you should be able to interact with), hit registration that is all over the place, and strange audio glitches.
  
  
• Balance: There is a very solid meta in the game that is really hard to break up. At the higher tier of the game, both sides will end up running 10ish perks each the majority of the time. Personally, I prefer to run meme builds/playstyles that vary from the meta, but they aren't as viable. There are just so many perks in the game that aren't very good, and could use a serious buff. In recent updates, this actually has been getting slightly better by adding the controversial boon totems, which many argue are OP. Personally, I am just glad to see some new perks being used, and some older ones becoming a bit more viable. There are many things that favor a particular side of the game: maps, killer powers, etc. Right now, I think things are generally more survivor-sided, which forces killers to bring slowdown perks that are not fun to play against, but are needed to have a chance. Personally, I think the key is to just not take the game too seriously, run a fun build, and laugh whether you escape or die. Sometimes matchmaking puts you against people out of your league, or someone playing with the meta while you are running memes. That is a reality of the game that you have to be able to accept if you want to enjoy it
  
  
• Community: A lot of the community can be really toxic and just bully the other side. I recommend finding cool people to play with. The DbD subreddit is a good place to look. Often times, the opposition side will run tactics that just don't let you play the game (tunneling, face-camping, disconnecting). It is helpful to not let these things trigger you, and just move on to the next match. Some of these tactics have counters as well.
  
  
• Hackers: There is a pretty big hacking issue in the game, and not all that much is being done about it. You seldom see noticeable hackers at lower ranks though.
  
  
• Development: This isn't a personal attack on the developers as individuals as I am sure the majority of them are trying their best to make a great game. The problem is that issues the community brings up take years, if ever, to be addressed. Big bugs are often not patched quickly enough. I really really wish the devs would give us 6-12 months with no new content, but actually address the issues with the game. For every new DLC, there is usually several new bugs with it. Also, the game events/season pass tend to be really lackluster.

Most of the game just feels like a chore to me. Run here, press arrows, run there, press arrows. It feels like the difficulty is never at a nice balance. It is either there is so little to kill one of your teammates can kill everything by themselves and you feel useless or there is so much to kill that your whole squad can't face it. There are rare moments where it feels like the whole squad is struggling to hold the line, but still scraping by. However, those joys are few and far between, fun as they may be.

Also, the progression system is frustrating, which might have been excusable had I enjoyed the rest of the game. It involves running around the map to collect to collect samples, which is just tedious and uninteresting, not to mention you need to give up a stratagem slot to more effectively collect them. And if you die, all that grinding was for naught, which will happen very often, especially at the time of extraction.

I understand what the game tries to be, but it just isn't my cup of liber-tea.

Superliminal is innovative in a way that you seldom get to experience in games. Imagine being able to play SUPERHOT or Portal again for the first time. This is as innovative as the greats.

Most of the puzzles are really interesting, and there are so many utterly mind-bending moments in the game.

The workshop support is really neat, and adds a lot to the game to make up for its brevity. I beat the main game in 3.5 hours, but I took my time with it.

The story isn't amazing, but it definitely isn't bad.

I'd advise against trying to get the fire extinguishers and fire alarms achievements on your first run. I tried to, and I felt like it distracted a lot from my play-through, not to mention I didn't even get the achievements in the end, even though I spent a lot of time looking for them. Also, as of writing, the Please Use Other Door achievement seems to be bugged. I fulfilled the requirement, but didn't get it.

The biggest warning for any potential buyers I have is that this game may cause motion sickness. I have never felt motion sick from a non-VR game before like I currently feel after finishing the game. I'd say it is worth it to experience it, but be aware if that is something that you are very sensitive to.

I would have to agree with the current top review; Superliminal doesn't quite stand up to the likes of Portal, but that doesn't mean you should skip it. It is definitely worth experiencing. Pick it up on a good discount.

As a fan of story-rich games like Firewatch, Life is Strange, The Last of Us, and Dishonored, I was really surprised that this game just didn't click for me.

I'll start with a few things I enjoyed. Seeing the tons of rats all scurry around and eat things was so cool; I haven't seen anything quite like it before in a game. On top of that, the graphics look beautiful and the game runs smoothly on my computer. In general, the art and ambiance of each level is wonderful. Also, the soundtrack is really good.

Now my issues.

The first and most glaring issue that stood out to me from the first moments of the game is the voice acting. It's not like all the actors are horrible. In fact I think the main character's voice actor did a pretty good job. Yet, something feels off about almost all the voice acting in the game. I considered switching to the French audio, but I read that even the English soldiers then speak in French, so that may be immersion-breaking. In all fairness, I should have tried it anyway. However, my frustration with the voice acting really hampered my ability to engage with the story.

The gameplay was alright, especially at the end when you get more powers. The problem is that most of the stealth/combat encounters have essentially one proper solution (pathway/tool). I'm not the sort of person who is opposed to linear games, but I do wish the game offered a bit more intrigue in the earlier levels by offering a few different ways to sneak past guards/get through an area. The gameplay is pretty mindless until about halfway through the game, especially since the guards are extremely predictable (never checking behind their back and strictly following a clear path if they move).

A big frustration for me was how some of the save spots are positioned. There were many times that I had to sit through the same minute of exposition before I could actually try to complete that section again. This is especially annoying in areas where you may die several times before figuring out what to do.

I am not a fan of crafting mechanics in most games, and I found them especially annoying in this game. I found myself regularly inundated with supplies and ammo, so I very often had to pass by loot because I couldn't even pick it up or turn it into anything. However, this really annoyed my monkey brain that felt bad passing up 5 different types of resources about half the time I found them because they were useless to me. Note: I wasn't intentionally hoarding my resources either. Most of the ammo types are pretty situational, and usually only one particular type can be used for a section.

The Story (No spoilers). The story was the main and only reason I was excited to play this game. Reviews are glowing for it, and I love similar types of story games. However, the story payoff just wasn't there for me. I didn't find the relationship dynamics very compelling or interesting. The same could be said about the main arc of the story. I was pretty bored with the story in the beginning of the game, but I pushed through hoping it would get better, and it only got more bearable. I wish there were at least neat notes/diaries/lore documents that let you get a better understanding of how people were reacting to the plague and to add a bit more texture to the world. Overall, I was disappointed going into this looking for a story game.

The Characters (Mild Spoilers). Probably one of the biggest reasons why I couldn't connect with the story was because of how immersion-breaking many of the characters are. I think the protagonist was fine. The biggest offender in this regard for me is the ~10-year-old alchemy apprentice in the game that acts as this sort of wise expert. The way he acts is so unlike any kid his age; it feels like the character would be better portrayed as an old man. Most of the other side characters just sort of play into some sort of trope (Tank, Rogue, etc).

The Story (Medium Spoilers). Often times, major plot points are sort of reduced to fantasy jargon. A major conflict towards the end is caused by the protagonist doing something dumb that doesn't make sense for the character to do, and is totally out of the player's control. Thus, that whole situation being dealt with was rather boring to me because the situation felt pointless to begin with. Also, I think much of the story relies on your attachment to the brother, and even though I spent the time to do side things with his character, I never really felt any attachment to him.

Overall, I could see why someone would enjoy the game, but I just couldn't really connect with it. To me, it just felt like a more beautiful, yet watered-down The Last of Us.

Made me question my sexuality

This is a total scam. You aren't going to get CDPR's Cyberpunk for Christmas. It is a 60$ game. Do you really think they can afford to buy everyone a copy? Those who buy this are the ones getting cyberPRANKed. The devs are even banning people who express doubt on the forum. That's about as suspicious as it gets.

EDIT: The game was somehow running in the background after I closed it, increasing the playtime. May be a trick to get you over the 2 hr return limit. Stay safe.

You don't me to tell you that Portal is an absolute classic that deserves to be played.

Portal 2 is one of my all-time favorite games, and while it is both superior to the original and can stand alone, it is definitely worth playing the original as it serves as a great prequel and as it sets up a good bit of lore (and it is short at 2-3 hours). It does feel a tad dated at times, especially with the timing of the loading screens, but it still holds up quite well.

Do yourself a favor and experience one of the gaming's classics.

The Good Stuff:

The layout and idea behind the game is pretty cool. I like how each "app" generally feels like a real app where you can do whatever, like comment of peoples posts or call random numbers. It is really neat design idea and it is well executed.

I also enjoyed a few of the more difficult puzzles, as they really added a sense of immersion into digging through someone's phone. The puzzles are mainly pretty easy, but the game doesn't baby you through them at all, so you feel smart when you manage to pull of something a bit more complicated.

The Bad Stuff:

For me, story is one of the most important parts of a game like this, and unfortunately SIMULACRA fails to deliver a good one.

Mild Spoilers: While the ending tried to be Black Mirror-esque, I feel like the story fails to properly set up the ending, so it kinda comes out of nowhere. Also, many things in the story aren't well explained or left to Deus Ex Machina

There are multiple endings, and you will get an idea of what they all are when you finish the game. Some of the potential outcomes have me slightly curious, but not enough to replay it to see them. Perhaps the story would have been more interesting had I gotten a different ending.

I am not a huge fan of horror, but I have played games like Prey and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice that have a creepy horror feel. The creepiness of SIMULACRA lasts only about the first 30 mins and then you become generally innoculated.

The main title song was also pretty cheesy.

As many other reviews have pointed out, some of the voice acting is on the level of "so bad it's hilarious".

I understand that with a smaller scale game like this it is difficult, but I felt like the chat options often strong-armed me into things I didn't want to say, which made things like gaining Taylor's trust feel unfair.

The Bottom Line: If you want a game with a good story, there are better games. If you want a game where choices matter, there are better games. If you want a horror game, there are better games. If you just want to see a cool mechanic in action, then you might want to check it out.