Recent reviews by Tiagozak

I may have pressed the thumbs up button on this one, but that's just a formality. Be very aprehensive of reviews from people who have not finished the game, or indeed reached Act 3. The game has a few nasty surprises in store for you once you reach that part, and which are not taken into consideration by those more premature reviews.

It turns out that this game is so, so broken. As the credits rolled, I was not left with a sense of finality, or satisfaction, or anything of the sort; rather, it was an empty, billious feeling, because any gravitas associated with the final moments of the game was rendered void by some truly baffling bugs: suffice it to say a character who died on my playthrough shows up in the cutscene where the other characters are mourning their loss, and acts like nothing happened. What a great way to capstone these 100+ hours of playtime.

And no, there was no story reason for this - the way they spoke, it was clearly a bug. This is the final cherry on top of the absolutely dreadful pile of issues present in Act 3 of this game. Everything is broken, from completely out of order quest events, to quests that do not clear, to combat deadlocks, to repeating dialogue, to increasingly worse performance the longer you play the game without rebooting...

Let there be no doubt: Baldur's Gate 3 is an incredible game, as you obviously already know by the 96% or so score it's getting here and elsewhere. I'm a big fan of the original, and I loved the first 80 or so hours of this one.

It's what came next that almost makes me want to give this a negative score, despite the game being above and beyond most of the other stuff released now or in the yesteryear. It's just not cooked all the way through, and that's a shame.

Wait until some patches have rolled out, and then give this one a go. Just be wary that you will be paying some hefty early adopter taxes if you decide to commit 100+ hours to this game right now.

This game forever ruined milk for me.

On the onset of the latest Clone Wars season, I was left wanting for more, and so I stumbled upon this one. I remember it coming out back in the day but being ruled out as a terrible game... and yeah, it kinda is. But I still managed to find some things to enjoy, so I'm writing this review for what it's worth. For reference, this is based on the Steam version played with an XBox controlller.

What is it about?

It's a fairly run of the mill action game set between seasons 1 and 2 of the Clone Wars TV series. You you can play both solo and in co-op (akin to a LEGO game) across 40 levels spread across 4 planets, with each level lasting around 5-10 minutes. You play as either Jedi, which have your typical hack'n'slash lightsaber combat chopping down droids, and clone troopers, which play a bit like a twin-stick shooter. There are also some vehicles, on occasion.

The good

- Actors from the series reprise their roles, and the banter between the characters is honestly quite decent (well, Clone Wars Season 1 decent, if you catch my drift). The character rooster is surprisingly varied, too. They range from the ones you'd expect (Anakin, Ahsoka, and so on), to a few good surprises, like Aayla Secura and Commander Green. There are even a few new clone characters.

- You feel powerful as hell. Sometimes, Star Wars games require you to hack at a bullet sponge with your lightsaber, which can be an immersion-breaker. On this one, though, even the toughest enemies will go down with just a few swings. Considering that you get a ton of clankers thrown at you at all times, this was a good decision.

- You can hijack most droids by jumping on them, and use them to destroy other droids, clear a path, instantly destroy them, and so on. It's an interesting mechanic that goes very well with what was shown on the series, and makes you, once again, feel like a Jedi. There are also some pretty set pieces.

The Meh

- The story is just about what you'd expect. It starts off as your typical military-based objectives (secure this town, hunt down those resistance pockets, etc), but all storylines across the four planets eventually converge in a fairly decent manner. It's predictable to a T, with a new planet-killer weapon (sigh), and I only give it credit because they actually bothered establishing an overall storyline, which I definitely didn't take for granted after playing the first few levels.

- The graphics mimic the style of the series, and they do a very good job at that most of the time. I think that they could have done better than that in 2009, though, and the planet selection does not help: two of them, Ryloth and Behpour, are a dusty drab mess. Another, Juma-9, is just a space station, and finally there is Alzoc III, a planet familiar to Star Wars fans and the only awe-inspiring setting in this game. It was also the shortest, which is a shame.

The Bad

- The gameplay. Oh god, the damned gameplay. I know I sang high praises about the mechanics above, and they are indeed that interesting... *when they work*. The control scheme is horrible, and even with ~~Navi~~ Yoda prompting you with tips about how to play, you will still click on the wrong buttons the whole. Damned. Time. And the jumping... don't even get me started on the jumping. You will fall, and fall, and fall, and fall down a hole again and again because the jumping is all over the place. Not a single mechanic is presented with a modicum of polishing. It's consistently rough and irritating, and that single-handedly ruins the game. It's even more jarring when you consider that this was targeted at children, which I really doubt will find anything remotely fun about not being able to land a jump because or hijack a droid because the button combination is utterly mind-boggling.

- The framerate struggles to remain at 60 for pretty much the entire game, and on the most demanding sections it can tank as far down as 20 FPS. Considering that I'm playing this on a PC that is far above the recommended specs for this, the issue is not on my side. This is also a Games for Windows Live title, and it was never patched. I had to use an unofficial fix to be able to play this game without that crap.

TL;DR

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes could have been a very decent tie-in game to what is now a beloved series for many, but it severely lacks any kind of polish, which can make the game borderline unplayable for most people. What is there beyond the gameplay is decent, but what is a game without its gameplay? I still liked it, as weird as that may seem, but I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone. There are definitely some things to appreciate about this game, but you could easily get those from YouTube if you really must. So yeah, don't play this unless you really want to waste 5 hours of your life falling and falling and falling and falling...

This is a paid game, and yet you need to pay real money to do something as basic as changing clothes. That should be enough to tell you what you're getting into.

Missed potential. It could have been a great game, but the gameplay is rather clunky and not as fluid as you'd expect. Still, not a bad game by all means. Props for the fairly original concept.

First of all, don't let the hours fool you; on Windows it does not count the time, and since that is where I developed the most, this time is not representative of the hours I spent using this engine.

That aside, I used Godot to develop a complete 2D videogame, and I have to say, the workflow is simply amazing. The fact that most objects can be instanciated as its own scene promotes both the parallelization of development and loosely-coupled code, and its scripting language, GDScript (similar to Python), is really pleasant to work with. Admittedly, I've only ever used Unity and Unreal Engine 4 besides Godot, but from the three Godot is definitely the easiest one to learn and the best one for quick prototyping. The fact that it is open source makes it all better, as I myself already have a few ideas I'd like to contribute with. It natively supports Linux too, and that's always a plus.

However, I have not tested how well the engine scales. I have not developed massive 2D games with this engine, or any 3D games at all, so I don't know how well it holds up when put into those contexts. But for small projects it is certainly a great choice.

This game has a whooping 14 minutes of gameplay, in which you go into a fantastically wild ride that takes you through 4 exciting levels in an action-packed platformer, telling the story of Poland as it tries to acquire more clay (clay is a Polandball word used to represent countries and landmasses, but apparently it is actual clay in this game. I love trope subversion!). Then there's an exciting clicking minigame that is super addicting and finally there is a flawless clone of Flappy Bird, simply because you can never get enough of those. Who wouldn't love Flappy Bird with a Poland instead of a bird?!?

I know that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is part of Polandball's charm, but having the developers apply that dogma to the whole hecking game is truly mind-blowing. Pack up your dat bois, your ugandan knuckles and your wednesday frogs; this is the best meme game ever. Kudos to the developers and their hard working team, who paid homage to classical Polandball comics by reusing those comics' art for the achievements. The authors of the comics, who I am sure were contacted and gave their full permission for their art to be used, should feel honoured for being part of this game.

In fact, I liked this so much I will give it the exclusive one-time pleasure of taking away my refund virginity. I am all yours, baby.

Ok, we all know how Call of Duty games are just clones with zero inovation, so I'll skip that old drama and instead address things that seem to be impossible for me to still exist in what is supposed to be a modern game:

- Infinitely long loading times. The game is graphically weak and the maps are pretty small, but still it takes ages to load and it eats up way too many resources than it has any right to do.

- One of the most generic WW2 experiences I have ever seen. For most of the time, I didn't even know which faction I was. It completely lacks character, and it definitely doesn't convey the WW2 feel at all.

- I started the game with a controller plugged in by accident, and to my surprise when I started a match I couldn't control the game using K+M because of it. Normal, properly functional games would allow me to seamlessly change between them, but this one doesn't. Ok, if I unplug the controller it will allow me to play with K+M, right? Wrong! It holds a "reconnect controller" message and doesn't allow anything else until I reconnect it. What the heck, what is this, 2003?

I would probably find more dirt if I kept digging further into the game, but I don't think I will as this alone seals (or unseals?) the deal for me. Don't come with the talk that "hurr durr this is a beta you silly goose, it's not the final product hurr durr". Heck off. The game comes out in a few weeks, and at this point very little to nothing will change. The beta is basically a glorified demo, and the changes, if there will be any, will be restricted to the network aspects of the game, with server stress tests and whatever. What you see in this beta in terms of pretty much everything is what you will get.

But it's Call of Duty, and unfortunately, it will still sell like hot cakes.

I have to admit that I have never played a Metal Gear Solid game before, and I bought this game in order to fix that. Although there is only a single mission in the game, it has a lot of replayability potential. It is cool to replay it using different approaches and by taking different routes. That mission is supposedly a prelude to MGS V: The Phantom Pain, and it is about rescuing two prisoners from a clandestine US facility on Cuba. The cinematics provided are fantastic and make me want to buy The Phanom Pain right away. There are also plenty of bonus missions set on the same map and with very diverse objectives, further increasing the game's potential. The gameplay is fun and addicting, but the IA is a bit questionable at times. Plus, it takes a lot of shots to bring someone down, and even then they usually don't die and come back up. I really hope that everyone is walking around with three layers of kevlar vest, otherwise it is just an immersion-breaker. The graphics are good, with gorgeous facial art, and it is optimized beautifully on PC. I run it with (mostly?) everything maxed out and I get constant 60 fps on my very modest machine. Does it worth the undiscounted 20€ it asks from you? No, absolutely not. But with a -80% discount, it is more than you could ask for. 87/100.

Em 2001 é lançado na indústria Red Faction, um FPS extremamente inovador para a altura e no qual podíamos destruir absolutamente tudo, edifícios e paredes/solo incluídos. Contudo, o jogo teve apenas um sucesso moderado e teve direito a uma sequela, Red Faction II, que esteve longe das expetativas e que fez levar o franchise até ao esquecimento. Foi então que em 2009 saiu Guerrilla, uma espécie de reboot à série. Este título, passados 50 anos depois do Red Faction original, apresenta-se desta vez como um jogo na 3.ª pessoa em mundo aberto e que preserva a principal característica da série, a destruição total dos cenários, de uma forma quase exímia, sendo que foi todo ele construído no motor de jogo Geomod 2.0, feito especificamente para este jogo.

A história do jogo passa-se em Marte, no século XXII. A EDF, uma organização militar vinda da Terra, está a oprimir e a exercer leis extremamente duras aos mineiros que trabalham em Marte (as minas são o motivo da colonização humana do planeta). É então que chega a Marte Alec Mason, um engenheiro de demolições, que procura um novo emprego longe de casa. Ao encontrar-se com o irmão, que já trabalhava em Marte há bastante tempo, depressa descobre que Marte não era o paraíso que lhe prometiam ser e que afinal era ainda pior do que a Terra. Após a morte inesperada do irmão aos braços da EDF, Alec Mason vê-se quase involuntariamente aliado à Red Faction, uma organização de resistência que visa libertar Marte da opressão da EDF através de uma guerra com base em tácticas de guerrilha, daí o nome do jogo. Isto leva-nos à estrutura básica de progressão do mesmo: existe um sector com várias missões espalhadas, o jogador realiza essas missões e destrói propriedades da EDF de modo a trazer o controlo que esta tem sobre esse sector até zero, e de seguida desbloqueia a missão para libertar esse tal sector. Esta ordem é unânime em todos os sectores de Marte e faz com que o jogador passe tanto tempo a vaguear pelo mapa à procura de alvos a abater (e por alvos, leia-se edifícios) como tanto tempo a fazer missões propriamente ditas. Isto leva a uma campanha algo desfragmentada e faz com que seja algo curta e pouco explorada (a história, apesar de ter alguns momentos bons, está longe de ser algo de especial ou particularmente memorável), mas mesmo assim, compreende ainda umas dez a 12 horas de jogo só para libertar todos os sectores (e acabar a campanha).

A nível de jogabilidade, é de salientar que a já referida destruição total apenas se aplica a edifícios e estruturas em geral, veículos e adereços. Não é possível escavar túneis nos montes como no título original, mas não deixa de ser uma experiência ímpar. A física dos edifícios e a maneira como colapsam não é cientificamente correta mas foi a única maneira de tornar tal coisa exequível em 2009, e tomando isto em conta, cumpre aquilo que promete. As armas são algo improvisadas e únicas, e são uma delícia de utilizar. Apenas a clássica Assault Rifle e outras armas mais convencionais deste tipo pecam devido ao sistema supérfluo de shooter e ao sistema de cobertura inexistente. É de realçar também os veículos, divertidos de conduzir, mas que são traiçoeiros devido à força da gravidade de Marte, que é inferior à da Terra. Isto reflete-se em saltos mais longos do que o habitual, numa menor aderência à estrada e em saltos quase lunáticos por parte da personagem. É um detalhe interessante e que só serve para enriquecer a jogabilidade, tornando-a mais frenética e instável, o que é positivo. Graficamente o jogo cumpre todas as expetativas. Considerando já a quantidade de recursos que são necessários para manter o sistema de demolição fluido e funcional, seria de esperar gráficos mais fracos, mas tal não acontece. Apesar de algumas paisagens serem um bocado desenxabidas, continua a dar um bom sentimento de imersão.

A nível sonoro, o jogo mostra também alguma proficiência, e apesar de não ter uma banda sonora por aí além, os sons das armas são fantásticos e as vozes das personagens aceitáveis, embora longe de brilhantes. Destaque ainda para o multijogador, que apesar de já ter pouca gente continua a ser divertido, e para a quantidade avassaladora de colecionáveis que decerto se provarão ser um desafio até para o colecionador mais persistente. Não obstante, é também necessário referir que esta análise foi feita com base na versão Steam do jogo, que sofreu um patch em 2014 que removeu o GFWL, adicionou funcionalidades Steamworks, ofereceu o DLC a todos os jogadores e otimizou o modo DirectX10 do jogo, que era uma lástima, melhorando assim a experiência global de Red Faction: Guerrilla. Para finalizar, este foi o jogo que prometeu reavivar um franchise e cumpriu a sua promessa. É um marco na indústria e, apesar de estar longe de perfeito, continua a ser uma referência. Recomendável, mas apenas com uma pequena dose de paciência para se poder passar por entre os momentos mais aborrecidos e para se poder tolerar os bugs mais constrangedores que possam assombrar a experiência de uma forma calma e tranquila.

Nota final: 83 em 100.

Análise mais detalhada aqui [dificuldademaxima.weebly.com]