Arcvox 最近的評論

Nightreign's announcement initially sparked some controversy due to its dramatic departure from the traditional Souls gameplay. As someone who spent a lot of time undecided on whether to try it out, I decided to give it a chance, and I'm glad I did, despite its notable shortcomings.

The core gameplay experience is fundamentally different from previous FromSoftware titles, which definitely won't appeal to every Souls veteran. While most might be used to the patient, methodical style of gameplay in previous titles, this won’t help you too much in Nightreign. Instead, this game operates on a strict two day timer where you must prepare to face one of eight Nightlords as one of 8 pre-made characters, each with their own sets of skills, stat structures and proficiencies.

The gameplay in Nightreign borrows heavily from battle royale mechanics, in which you're dropped into a map that gradually shrinks in explorable areas over the course of each in game day, encouraging strategic route planning. Each morning the map resets, but as night falls, you're corralled into a small area for a scripted boss encounter. Reading the map becomes an essential skill; every location offers tempting rewards like elemental weapons suited to defeat your chosen Nightlord, healing flask charges or talismans. Despite this, simply going after treasure isn’t enough, you really need to balance it out by hunting down bosses littered across the map in order to ensure that you’re leveling up enough in the mean time, creating a tense risk-reward dynamic that might clash with Souls veterans taking a more patient and methodical approach.

The eight available characters each offer distinct specializations, strengths, and weaknesses. Major abilities on cooldown timers really differentiate them: the Wylder can grapple bosses or pull enemies closer for example, the Revenant can summon creatures and specializes in faith based magic, and the Recluse can generate infinite FP for spellcasting. Learning these character specific skills is crucial for success.

The progression system includes Murk, a persistent currency earned across matches that's used to purchase cosmetic skins and relics. These relics function similarly to Bloodborne's runes, providing significant bonuses that can dramatically enhance specific character aspects, whether its flat stat increases, or even improving a selected characters skill, sometimes quite dramatically.

While the map includes interesting modifiers such as snowy mountains, elevated Nox ruins, underground flaming temples amidst pools of magma, and scarlet rot-infested forests, it begins to feel a little stale after extended play. I’d definitely like to see one or two added maps eventually, each with their own modifiers.

More frustrating is the missed opportunity with existing FromSoftware content. While some other players have called out From’s blatant reuse of existing assets, one of my more glaring complaints is that they didn’t reuse enough! Since it’s all in the same engine, I feel as though they could have easily lifted and shifted more content from older games, particularly from titles older than Elden Ring. There’s an insane amount of content they could have borrowed from, and considering this title’s clear rogue-like approach, there actually isn’t really that much content all things considered. I actually felt like the weapons were quite limited per category, and some of the bonuses and perks you collect from defeating bosses were quite uninteresting and lackluster, though I do understand that this is a From game, so including ridiculously overpowered abilities isn’t really uniform to the series.

Aside being fairly light on content, Nightreign's multiplayer design has some glaring issues. The game supports three players or solo play, yet there is no duo option, which doesn’t make a lot of sense considering a player can leave and the game scales down to the two remaining players. If the scaling is already there, why on earth isn’t it an option in the first place?! I also found it bizarre that the roundtable hold isn’t utilized as a pre-game lobby for the group- a place to show off your skins, mess around and emote, or even prep new relics. Many PvE games have this, and the roundtable hold seems perfect for the task. I also thought it was a missed opportunity that you can’t select your relic loadout during character selection, as what you might want to bring may change depending on the Nightlord you’re facing.

Despite these issues, the Nightlord encounters themselves are genuinely excellent. Each boss feels thoughtfully put together, and I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed some of the boss themes. The theme for the Equilibrious beast has become one of my all time favorites. It’s also good to see the developers are rolling out (sort of) free content in the form of more beefed up variations of the existing Nightlords.

So on a final note, Nightreign in my opinion succeeds as an experimental departure from the regular Souls formulae, offering a genuinely enjoyable gameplay loop that can create some interesting yet sometimes frustrating moments- depending on the team you end up with, of course. That said, I do wonder if this game could have been a DLC rather than a full standalone release, but either way, it’s a fun game that could really use some more content to lean into the rogue like elements harder. It certainly has potential to be great, and there’s no lack of existing content to draw from in Fromsofts archives. Just keep in mind, this is a drastically different kind of game, so going in with an open mind (and maybe some friends too) is key to experiencing the best that Nightreign has to offer.

Pros : 
The Nightlord designs, from the soundtracks to the fights, are well designed and challenging.
The new gameplay loop is actually quite enjoyable, though optimal play strategies can lead to repetitive gameplay.
The gameplay is fun, though this can be somewhat reliant on if you get a team you gel with.
Currently they are including new content for free in the form of beefed up versions of the existing bosses, which is very welcome!


Cons :
Lack of content, from weapons to enemies.
Some balancing issues that are already being addressed in patches.
Poor decisions regarding the network aspects of the game. The roundtable is a bit wasted potential in terms of game lobbies, and the lack of a duo option feels poorly thought out.
Missed QoL opportunities, such as relic load outs during character selection.
The reliance of random players can sometimes be a hinderance, and are exacerbated by a lack of communication options.

I tried to go into reviewing Slitterhead with an open mind, but I fear my mind wasn’t open enough to allow my brain to fall out, which may have helped me enjoy the game more in the long run.

Touted to be the next underground horror hit from Keiichiro Toyama, behind the original Silent Hill and Forbidden Siren games, the game landed with basically no marketing other than rumors circulating horror boards. It’s already a pretty niche genre, so there was little to no fanfare, and a huge RRP certainly didn’t help matters with the bizarre inclusion of Denuvo inevitably inflating the price of the game.

I’m not going to beat around the bush, the game isn’t very good in nearly every single aspect. The concept itself isn’t bad, and could have served up a decent story line and objective to the gameplay, but all of it is told through a disembodied voice and random conversations between the ghostly protagonist and the main characters. The writing here is unfortunately poor and the voice acting is utterly bizarre. Basically, some things are narrated, others are not, then other conversations are pseudo narrated where the character’s speech would display a text box saying something like ‘We have to find the Slitterhead before it kills anyone else’ while a voice over says something completely different as a sound byte. I’ve never seen anything done like this in any other game I’ve played - it’s like Zelda where the NPCs will have a sound or noise they make while the text box appears, but as they’re not words, it’s fine and isn’t jarring.

Gameplay wise, you’re essentially exploring sections of the city searching for various clues that help you track down a Slitterhead (the games antagonists) typically. This could be by following a scent, or tracking it via remote perspective changes. You have some traversal abilities, mostly grappling or jumping between NPCs using the possession ability. The main characters are also obtained via possession, and have better combat abilities that can be leveled up. This is the less egregious aspect of the gameplay, as many other chapters involve forced stealth sections using the possession jumping to progress.

So, where do the problems come in? They’re all equally pervasive and grow to annoy you over time really. The gameplay is clunky and unresponsive, the combat is unintuitive and outright frustrating thanks to not being able to switch targets if you’re fighting more than one enemy (Which has STILL not been addressed afaik). The story is sort of there, but again that aspect is stupid as the game expects you to play through chapters repeatedly in order to collect everything - apparently this basically hides a true ending. I did not get that far, because I don’t hate myself that much. The game actively works against you here as well, since if you wander into the ‘discovery’ part of the level where the Slitterhead chase begins, you can’t explore the level properly anymore as you’ll fail the mission if you stop chasing the Slitterhead!

All in all, this game feels a bit like a scam riding on the coat tails of Toyama’s previous successes. I wouldn’t have felt this way if perhaps it had released as a budget title, or even early access, but as it goes, it’s incoherent, lazy, frustrating and mediocre. The graphics are OK; serviceable but clearly PS2 quality. Which is fine, if the game wasn’t demanding the price of a full AAA release! I’m afraid the diehard horror fans will defend this game, but it really doesn’t deserve to be defended much at all. The good aspects don’t carry it - it’s basically glitter in a turd in its current form. I will reiterate however, I’d be a LOT more forgiving if this was priced fairly.


Pros :
The body horror designs of the Slitterheads are kind of cool.
The possession system isn’t bad, I’d quite like to see it in a better game.
Some music tracks are decent, but few and far between.

Cons :
Horrible sound design, particularly with the voice acting. The weird hybrid voice sampling mixed with fully voiced lines just makes it feel unfinished.
Poor controls, leading to frustrating chase sequences and combat.
Doesn’t respect your time with regards to obtaining the true ending.
Horrendously overpriced for what you get.
The game quickly runs out of content and you’ll be doing new missions in the same couple of maps for the majority of the game.
The protagonists barely have any depth to them.
Very dated graphics, looks like a PS2 game.
Enemies are absolute tanks. I played in nightmare mode, which understandably won’t be for everyone, but the combat felt so boring chipping away constantly at every enemy.

Clair Obscur was quite a random drop this year, but from the initial preview of the game I found myself interested to say the least, but kept low expectations going in. What I didn’t expect was that E33 would quickly become one of the best JRPG experiences I’ve had in a long career of gaming, and more importantly a beacon to completely show up bloated triple A companies who have been telling us for years that old school RPG experiences aren’t what we want. Looking at you, Square!

Right from the get go, we’re introduced to some of the main cast of the game, hopelessly existing for a time in what seems to be almost like a pocket dimension of a fragmented earth. Each year, a number is painted, and at the end of the year, those of that age wither into nothing. Amidst a turbulent yet beautiful town surrounded by the twisted landscape, there’s a feeling of hopelessness as life is taken unfairly year after year, all because of this enigmatic paintress, assumed to be the games antagonist. This prologue is very well put together. It sets the tone of what’s to come.. which unfortunately involves a lot of loss and grief. This culminates to a very hectic conclusion on the main continent, which is essentially the next fragment of the world, which the expeditioners try to make their way to each year to stop the paintress from taking more lives.

The world is beautifully crafted, and fits the narrative well. The world truly feels torn asunder with the last vestiges of humanity clinging on, as we would likely do in those circumstances. The graphics are impressive, and beyond that, the aesthetics are very well crafted, particularly in the battle system. It oozes style and soul, much in the same way Persona 5’s combat system does. While there may not be as much active control over combat, it relies more heavily on strategy, movesets and skill tweaking, but also includes a parry and dodge system to still give the player some skill based determination in battle - something I greatly appreciated as a Souls fan.

Outside of combat, the gameplay isn’t anything groundbreaking - you control your character, move around the map as you would in any other JRPG. The maps, while beautifully crafted and diverse enough to tickle your sense of exploration, are fairly linear. Essentially there may be a few branching pathways, and small areas to explore for items or hidden enemies, but it’s nothing too basic. I did find it a bit confusing at times to navigate, sometimes running back through some of the map after a cutscene for example.

The most impressive thing with this game (and there are a lot of things to sing praises about) is the absolutely spectacular sound design. The soundtrack is moving, haunting and incredibly robust. I think I counted maybe 10 separate battle tracks in the first few hours of the game, tweaked to suit the situation better. During exploration, certain parts of the soundtrack are muted, to give this dynamic approach reminiscent of Phantasy Star Online, which creatively threaded its exploration and battle tracks together. It really ties the gameplay together for a fluid experience, and it certainly hasn’t gone without notice.

Ultimately, Clair Obscure is a callback to the golden age of RPGs, with a modern aesthetic applied, a beautifully crafted experience that has some real soul and passion behind its creation. I’d highly recommend it to anyone harking back to those JRPG days, or any RPG fan really. It’s a rare gem that doesn’t come along often; the sort of game that makes people see the woods from the trees and makes you start to question if we really need massive AAA studios making stupid executive decisions that have no reflection whatsoever on what gamers actually want.


Pros :
Incredible sound design, from beautiful and moving scores to dynamic music tracks fading in and out of action and exploration.
Beautiful aesthetics, a vibrant dreamlike setting oozing soul.
Excellent turn-based combat system, an evolution of old JRPGs with the inclusion of active skills such as parrying and dodging that make you feel as though you’re improving outside of stat growth.
Gripping and mysterious storyline, especially near the start, and the initial landing of the expedition is very intense.
The characters are all actually likeable which is a feat in modern gaming.

Cons :
Fairly linear world design.
Sometimes the writing can be a bit jarring as the quality differs between integral cutscenes and optional conversations. Nothing major.
It’s a bit cutscene heavy in places, with mixed pacing during these segments.
The balancing in Act 3 is very broken and your team can get absurdly overpowered with the right set ups.

Amazing piece of software, especially for retro gaming and animation.

This game is a perfect example of why Steams binary recommend/not recommend review system is frustrating. It’s one of those ‘sort of, but…’ situations that has given me much to think about, but ultimately I have to say that despite the enjoyable parts of the game, it’s an outright mess in it's overarching narrative, and is essentially a game trapped in a minigame simulator. YET, I like it more than I dislike it. So it's a recommend, but not a strong one by a long shot.

Firstly, I feel the need to disclose that I’m an avid fan of the original, as I know that I’m going to be somewhat affected by nostalgia. Like many people, the remakes introduction left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, firstly by the deviation in storyline and secondly being split over 3 full priced releases, which is made way more frustrating considering the sheer amount of redundant content many players will just not bother to engage with.

Firstly, I wanted to talk about the narrative of the game. I really enjoyed my time with the cast for the most part, despite some hang ups. They have clearly made the game more appropriate for a wider audience, which has taken away some of the deeper elements of the original story. The extra narrative feels akin to the absolute train wreck that is the Kingdom Hearts story, so convoluted that you suspect the lead writer isn’t quite qualified for the task.

Aerith’s final scene was quite ruined in particular; it was incredibly meaningful in the original, yet here in a world of poorly thought out multiverses, there are no consequences really. Sephiroth’s mystique and terrifying prescence is also massively overused. The time keeping ghosts are back, and if you thought they were confusing the first time around, well here’s another two flavours of them. Cloud is incredibly less likeable than in the original, as though they’ve triple downed on the fact there’s something wrong with him, it kind of creates this unrealistic situation where he’s leading the group, they trust him, but he’s consistently unreliable outside of his ability to kill things.

Gameplay wise, the combat has undergone much needed refinement and feels more fun to play than before, and I do appreciate the ability to play as other members of the team, who have totally different play styles, strengths and weaknesses. The open world element to the world map didn’t feel too bad really. It is beautifully crafted and gives you a great sense of scale, however here at this point in the game, you’re introduced to the other gameplay aspects. Ubisoft style towers, digging quests, combat challenges, collecting materials to craft with – very familiar gameplay aspects that are present in just about every open world game. I don’t like these myself as they feel like padding, and in my older age I like to feel that my time is at least a little bit respected.

This quickly worsens though, as when engaging with this open world content, Cloud is constantly slowed down by inane delayed animations, stupid button press exercises when scanning rocks and constantly being called by Claude, who has a ridiculous amount of lines spoken in this game. I honestly found it bizarre that they kept him in – he’s boring, has an annoying voice and constantly talks to you about the most pointless things. You CAN choose to avoid most of this open world content, but if you do this, you can say goodbye to any powerful materia to use in your arsenal.

The pacing is also quite frustrating. The game itself has a LOT of minigames, a fair few of them requiring you to play them at least once at certain parts of the story. This seems extremely top heavy though during the midpoint of the game, from Juon through the Gold Saucer, which are incredibly minigame based. An entire card tournament (wasn’t a fan myself, it’s no Triple Triad), followed by several minigames in Costa del Sol, followed by many more in the GS. I felt very burned around this mark and just wanted to get on with the story.

Finally, to sum it up, Rebirth feels as though it’s entirely coasting on the original aspects of the game it hasn’t drastically changed, and is hindered by many of the new elements it has introduced. I don’t hate this game, and for the most part I enjoyed it, but it’s nothing on the original despite it cleaning up well and presenting a beautiful world. But ultimately I think the new storyline elements are pretty terrible, and I actually suspect they are designed to be as convoluted as possible in order to get theory crafters to do the heavy lifting. All in all, it's a pretty but mediocre experience that gets by on nostalgia. Play the original instead.

Pros

Beautiful graphics and a nicely crafted world.

Cutscenes are well put together, and the action scenes are fantastic.

Refined combat from Remake, much more engaging to play.

Some of the new music arrangements are nice, but others not so much.


Cons

Feels distinctly sanitized to reach a wider audience, which takes away some of the depth of the original.

Considerably mired by boring gameplay elements the player is forced to engage with.

Noticeably bad pacing midgame (Juon – Gold Saucer).

Felvidek is a bizarre and yet oddly enticing retro RPG set in 1500s Bohemia, in which you control a love-jaded boozehound knight called Pavel and his unfortunate holy man tag-along Matiej, as they uncover a cultist plot that threatens the land.

The gameplay is straightforward, as much as you’d expect for an RPG maker style game. There really isn’t anything in this regard that makes it stand out particularly. That said, in this game, you don’t actually level up. So many of the fights rely on strategic thinking as opposed to grinding and overpowering. Sometimes it’s an obvious solution, but other times fighting directly isn’t the answer. This isn’t a downside perse, as it gives finding new equipment and exploring for items a much bigger payoff. The fighting animations and enemy pixel art are good.

Graphically, the game takes on an aesthetic reminisce of an old Gameboy game, using a very minimal colour pallete consisting of washed out yellows, browns and purples. While this might not seem exciting, I feel it suits the time period the game is set. There’s even a few cinematics thrown in at points in the storyline, which perfectly suited the rest of the games theme.

The music track really is quite wonderful, at first I was a bit unsure, but it grew on me very quickly. It’s very lo-fi / funky / electronic at times, but some tracks are so catchy I listened to them outside of the game entirely as they were stuck in my head, which can’t be a bad sign!

Overall, I’d highly recommend this to any RPG fan, or any fan of those strange little gaming gems that come around from time to time, like Felvidek. It’s a crazy adventure bordering on the absurd at times, striking a likeness to games like Hylics with a bit of Monty Python style humour for good measure. The game practically oozes soul and the characters are so well written, foibles and all. Great work Jozef and Vlado!

Pros
-Excellent soundtrack, some really memorable tunes that perfectly hit the crazy adventures the protagonists are on.
-Fantastic ye olde style writing that captures the absurdity of their adventures. The comedic parts genuinely made me laugh out loud.
-Likeable characters all around, even the antagonists.
-Awesome side content that rewards exploration.

Cons
- Combat can be a little heavy on requiring certain tactics and items to win, so some trial and error is required. You can save whenever you like, so take advantage of this!
- Unfortunately I encountered a couple of crashes in my playthrough. Nothing too major though.

It’s been a very very long time since the original came out, so an old beloved series like this was always going to present a challenge. But considering the difficulty in obtaining a copy legitimately or even having the knowhow to emulate it properly, it was in danger of falling further into obscurity, and more recent projects either being either lackluster or outright cancelled (P.T on the PS3), the idea of a Silent Hill remake was always going to ruffle some feathers.

I was introduced to the series with Silent Hill 1 through a Playstation demo disk, which I was blatantly too young to understand, and it terrified me. But it stuck in my head for a long time which made me come back to the series to overcome it – and it quickly became one of my favourite series in gaming. I must have done around 10 playthroughs of SH2 alone – and I can fully vouch for this remake.

I was apprehensive going in, but Bloober has done a fantastic job bringing the series to life again to allow a new crowd of fans to see the atmosphere, tone and horror of Silent Hill. These aspects have been nailed, and while the game is significantly different in terms of its map design, the original content has clearly been respected and considered. New things have been tried, but all are in keeping with the gameplay loop you’d expect from a Silent Hill game.

To touch on differences between the OG game and the remake – firstly the controls have been massively modernised, which presents the first minor issue with the game – James is very agile and enemy attack patterns can be learned, which can make combat feel less about survival than the original. It feels as though you’re expected to rise to the challenge of the combat and running away seems a lot harder – considering enemies can follow you to different rooms now, and the corridors feel like they have less space. Enemies are also much more agile and even react to you in unexpected ways, like running, hiding and setting up ambushes. I don’t dislike this though, it’s just different.

The controls are more akin to something like Callisto protocol or the RE4 remake, over the shoulder reactive shooting with a dedicated melee and dedicated firearm button essentially. All modern day QoL improvements which some may feel take away some of the feeling of helplessness that added to the horror elements of the original game, whether it was intended or not!

The visuals are gorgeous. The trademark fog of Silent Hill drifts and billows in the rustic dilapidated streets, looming around every corner and obscuring the shifting shapes of enemies staggering around. Massive creepy looking makeshift walls blocking off the exits, layers of corroded metal. There’s some really cool graphical features too like leaves and discarded trash floating around in the streets, and fabrics blowing in the wind. A lot of attention to detail has been made in the games design, and it shows, it really is quite beautiful in its own oppressive way.

The characters and writing, in my opinion, have been improved somewhat. There are slight things that are worse in the remake, but I think it boils down to preference. The acting/writing wasn’t great in the original, and even worse in the HD collection. But the uncanny voice acting added to the otherworldly feel, so it’s hard to say whether this was intentional or not. A lot of that is gone in the remake, but it sounds more natural now. The additional characters are more empathetic in some ways, but overall again Bloober did a good job. You’ll hear a lot of arguments regarding the characters, specifically Maria and Angela, but a lot of them are bad faith arguments either from people more invested in the culture wars than Silent Hill as an IP, or the sort of people where nothing would ever impress them over the originals. My own personal negative of the new characters was that Maria seemed a bit too human considering the dubious nature of her existence. In the OG game she seemed like a demon/snake wearing human skin, and this came across in the way she spoke. Angela seems better though, sorry to those who disagree, but in this she actually seems like a 19 year old and not the 40 year old I thought she was meant to be in the original.

With all that said, Silent Hill 2 is a great remake and I highly recommend it. I’d love to see SH1, 3 and even The Room remade in this same way, and I never thought I’d say it, but it’s clear Bloober have respected the IP, respected the fans and did a good job making this a reality. Cheers!

Pros:
Gorgeous world design that considers multiple previous entries in SH.
Perfect sound design made by the OG Akira Yamaoka, and radio / menu sounds fitting of the original games and decent voice acting. (Also I’m pretty sure they used the radio sound from P.T which is awesome)
New content for returning fans of the OG with lots of nods and easter eggs to older games.
Very respectful to the original game.
Good gameplay, though there’s clearly more focus on facing enemies rather than running from them.
Enemies now have variants which is a much needed element to the game.

Cons:
The odd janky animation sometimes, when James picks up items etc.
Maria seems more human and less demon this time around.
Some traversal microstutter. Unfortunately a fairly common UE5 issue. There are some minor fixes you can find in the guides section on Steam.

Space Marine 2 is an excellent sequel to the original, improving on the original game in almost every aspect. As it currently stands, I think it's a great game and represents the 40K universe very well, capturing grand scale combat zones on gorgeous alien planets. That said, it can certainly do with some quality of life improvements, which is to be expected of most new games out the gate. Hopefully they will address certain issues quite quickly, though most of these didn't affect the game in a negative way. More details on that below.

The game itself follows the story from the first game, which was a fairly basic story about the discovery of a relic which brings about nothing but trouble for the protagonist, Titus. Essentially, he is paying penance for his "crime" in the last game, which consists of him not dying. As a result of this, he has grown distrustful of his fellow brothers, which in turn makes his brothers not trust him - along with the obvious fact that he mysteriously vanished for the last couple of centuries. The campaign takes place over 3 planets, while certain storyline events take place concurrently with the Operations game mode, which is essentially another 6 missions in co-op mode, where you can play as a custom Space Marine.

The gameplay is pretty basic. It's very similar to Gears of War without the cover system, instead relying on stunning and executing enemies to restore your overshields. You'll be mixing up melee and gun play mopping up large numbers of basic enemies while eliminating the larger threats, which mostly consist of two large factions each with around 6-7 enemy types each, and some boss type enemies too.

Overall, I do recommend this game, however I do feel that the amount of content itself is a little bit lacking. Saber have made a very good game platform for more content to be added, and I can imagine different scenarios and missions could easily be added to objective mode. Having completed the campaign, it definitely feels as though it's meant to be played co-op too, especially with all the cool cosmetics you can unlock in the multiplayer modes. These additions I feel like would be low effort for the developer, so maybe they will consider it in the future.

Other than the small quality of life improvements and a bit of tweaking on some of the multiplayer classes, I think Saber did an excellent job, and I look forward to more content. The storyline is gripping, the visuals are amazing, and it's the sort of fun gory gameplay that we used to get a lot of in gaming, so it's nice to have a callback to that.

Pros:
- Excellent visuals that brings the 40K universe to life in an authentic way.
- Captures the essence of the Space Marines in all their glory (though on harder difficulties you won't feel very powerful at all)
- Impressive horde mechanics, particularly in their movement. Climbing up walls and scrambling over each other suits the tyranids amazingly.
- Combat is fairly basic but fun, and glory killing enemies never seems to get old.

Cons:
- Gaining multiplayer XP is incredibly slow, given that you'll be repeating online content a fair bit. This is exacerbated by the fact that cosmetics use the same currency as productive upgrades such as perk points. I feel like the two should have been separated so you can work towards your favorite chapter AND progress in abilities so you can pull your weight better in teams.
- Melee in particular needs some buffs, as it tends to do little damage compared to firearms.
- Harder difficulties are quite overtuned at the moment. This is especially apparent against ranged enemies, who always seem to have a clear line of sight to your team and make extremely quick work of you while in combat.
- Missing some obvious and easy to implement quality of life improvements, such as a co-op campaign mode, customisable campaign armor sets using cosmetics from the multiplayer, and weapons carrying over from certain chapters. I noticed in the campaign, Titus regularly has his default armor and weapons, which is understandable in CGI cutscenes, but not in the in-game ones. Also, I would have preferred to have the helmets on the team for the custscenes too. There is an option for this, but it only affects gameplay moments.

Still Wakes the Deep is a great entry into the horror genre, more specifically centered around themes such as body horror, Lovecraftian elements, claustrophobia and thalassophobia. You play a character down on his luck working on an oil rig off the coast of Scotland, before the rigs drill hits an unknown entity that sets off a chain of horrific events that results in both the crew mutating, as well as the oil rig itself distorting. While being set in an environment as industrial and bleak as an oil rig, some of the cosmic horror elements in the form of the entity itself bring a slew of strangely visually pleasing aesthetics to the game, despite being hostile and quite frankly disgusting.

The story elements are well done, as is the voice acting; it’s fairly uncommon to hear British and Scottish voice actors in a game, but in a strange way it adds a level of authenticity to the games storyline in my opinion. The main character is likeable and the writing is very authentic to the Scottish. You’ll hear a lot of swearing and banter between the crew, and a lot of colloquialism that I personally really enjoy in a game.

The horror elements are great, the body horror specifically is quite magnificently gross, yet you can’t help but take a look and really examine the brutal transformations that the entity causes on board. I found myself going out of my way to find most of the dead (or not dead) crew members to see their fates. Most of these dead crew members are essentially either set pieces or hazards, but there are a few notable enemies that force stealth sections. I didn’t mind them too much but some areas did get frustrating, as the enemies movements are actually very hard to predict as they moved around the areas like giant legged spiders almost.

In terms of the gameplay, we’re really looking at loop that incorporates walking simulator elements, light parkour and a few stealth sections between, with some very minor puzzle elements of remedial tasks like turning switches off or moving carts out of the way of your path. At its core, it’s a pretty basic game and mostly an enjoyable horror experience, but due to this I can’t really imagine doing multiple playthroughs. Despite that, I would 100% recommend this game but only perhaps during a sale and not for full price – it’s a short experience but a good one nonetheless.

Pros
Excellent voice acting
Original concept and setting
Great visuals and weather effects

Cons
Not much replayability
A little on the short side

Having played the original trilogy when it first released almost 20 years ago, I had forgotten just how great this series is. Filled with amazing imagery, solid writing / voice acting and immersive gameplay that really makes you feel like a badass flying through space saving the galaxy. For me it feels a bit like a spiritual successor to the Knights of the Old Republic games in many ways, tying space sim elements to a story-deep action RPG. As the series progresses, so does the quality of life changes and positive changes to some of the weaker elements of the first game. Visually, the whole thing is stunning and still manages to hold up today - though I would recommend installing a couple of mods just to make your experience that much greater. I used the ALOT and ALOV mods which feature upscaled textures and videos.

For those completely new to the series, essentially this is a third person action RPG, using a cover system. The game tends to split between exploration, gunplay and the story-driven narrative, employing a morality system that lets you determine what kind of galactic saviour you are. You might be a paragon of hope, making decisions to be kind and benevolent, or a renegade who takes any action available to them to get the job done. Of course, many difficult decisions are present in this series, ones that will certainly carry over even from the first game to the third. That renegade decision might ultimately be the right move for example - or it might just be funny or cool!

The first game of this series released in 2007 - and it mostly holds up very well. That said, some of the controls and gunplay feel a little restrictive, and I would have liked to see more features such as FOV control or shoulder cam switching. That said, the second game vastly improves on the shooting elements. The other thing I feel I should mention is the awful EA launcher that tries forcing you to launch after you install. I highly recommend looking up the 'F@@@ EA guide' which gives you a very useful way of avoiding it altogether. Of course, there was some controversy with how the last game ended back in the day, and this ended up with a lot of drama unfortunately. Without giving too many spoilers regarding that, I'll just say the ending felt quite rushed. There are a lot of mods and a patch that Bioware released, though I never tried it myself as this is the first time I've replayed the series since completing it all those years ago.

On a final note, as anyone who is a fan of Star Trek or similar, RPGs or Sci-Fi stories, this collection is a must-have, and probably for me one of the best game series of all time.

Recommended mods:
For the entire trilogy, I recommend ALOT (Texture improvements), ALOV (AI upscaled videos) and Lighting Restoration. These mods are available for each game as packs and make a lot of improvements that bring the ME series almost to the current gen in a lot of ways.

To vastly improve the ending of ME3, I highly, highly recommend getting CEM (Citadel Epilogue Mod). This basically places one of ME3s DLCs at the end of the game, which basically acts as a heart warming goodbye to all the characters in the game. It just fits so well, especially since the DLC contrasted with the grim narrative of the final game.

Lastly, for ME3, make sure to get EGM (Expanded Galaxy Mod). This adds a huge bunch of new quests and truly difficult decisions that effect your final army for the last fight, in a totally meaningful way. It adds so much more immersion to the game - I mean a LOT. The maker of the mod deserves so much credit. There is one scene that allows you to call in the final battle near the end of the game that is genuinely one of the most kino moments in gaming I've experienced.

Pros:
Immersive and gripping storyline.
Incredible soundtrack.
Great writing and decent voice acting.
Graphics that hold up well today.

Cons:
EA Launcher (can be fixed with guide)
The ending was definitely rushed.
A small bit of clunkiness in the first game.