Recent reviews by Bochs

Excellent first impression, extremely immersive and runs well on a mid-high rig (@ high settings, 1080p | 60FPS).
Review may change with time, as I have seen that the game can become unstable as it proceeds; I've yet to encounter any bugs or problematic issues for the time being, but that may be subject to change.

It feels like a more balanced version of my modded Call of Pripyat setup and I think I love that about it. It's exhilarating feeling a challenge again after so long.

I've continued to thoroughly enjoy the game. I've only encountered one bug so far in the form of a side quest becoming soft-locked due to a key character dying in a radioactive area somewhere in the Slag Heap.

The game has stellar art direction, but is marred by a couple of glaring issues:
- the level design can sometimes feel very empty, leaving arenas rather boring
- the mouse input has a really odd delay, and I can't tell if it's input lag or mouse acceleration
- areas of the game aren't very well optimised, even on medium settings with an RX7600. stutters and framerate dips were frequent in the opening act
- the game felt a little too easy, which I found strange considering the fact the game seemed to scrutinise the idea of the character dying repeatedly
- the zipline sections are absolutely brainless, and the few times where you have agency are equally as boring
I appreciate what this game has to offer, and the potential is all there. Until those issues are ironed out, I'm not sure if I'll fork over the dough to purchase the full game.

One of the best Half-Life mods I've played in recent memory. Gunplay is punchy, level design feels official, and the overall polish is very noticeable. My only complaint is that this Diana character is a real boulder on a tether to drag around, feels like Natalya from GoldenEye all over again with her ability to stand around and get killed helplessly. Admittedly, it is amusing to see just what stupid corner she throws herself into to get mauled by zombies while you fend off against grunts and controllers.

saw this game pop up in the new and trending and immediately bought it, no questions asked
didn't know anything about this game or its sequel, just saw what kind of game it was and knew that I had to get it for my childhood's sake.
my only complaint is that the dialogue and characters feel very tropey and boring, but it's easily remedied by disabling voice and focusing on the mine

welcome back Motherload... how I've missed you...

There are two reasons I dislike this game. One is related to this PC port, and the other is in relation to the game's content. I'll start with the PC port.

Dude, this game is SERIOUSLY unstable. Like, INSANELY unstable. Get this: I launched the map editor *once* several years ago, and it caused the game to brick on startup almost permanently. Every single time I tried to launch the game, it would pop up with the logo, and crash. You want to know how I fixed it? By going into my computer's Registry Edit application and deleting the Ubisoft folder. HUH?! You're telling me that Ubisoft is selling a game where you need to modify your system files to ever play it again if you touch the wrong application???

This is utterly appalling to me that they'd ever bother selling a game in this state. And NO, don't give me the "just update Ubisoft Connect and use the technical troubleshooting!" crap, *THIS* is how you fix it. Ubisoft, as well as its support responses should be ashamed for selling a game that is so easily broken; For those that aren't so tech savvy or understanding of things like RegEdit, this might as well be a permanently broken game until they purchase an entirely new computer.

Regarding the game:

For me, no amount of gloomy tone and good worldbuilding will ever account for the grindy nature of the game's collectibles, and sluggish/shoddy movement. I love how morally grey this game is, but my hatred for the incessant bugs and jank trump my enjoyment of the game's ideas regarding narrative.

Death from Above often not proccing, or landing on an environment violently mid-animation causing sound propagation is a regular occurrence, making stealth obnoxious; With regards to which, enemies are insanely twitchy with stealth: if you accidentally melee an enemy before the arbitrary takedown context is met, regardless of how quickly you takedown the enemy thereafter, enemies will ALWAYS be alerted by the sound of the khukri slashing. Weapons feel very samey, and that classic Ubisoft bitcrush is in full swing for pretty much the entire game. No cutscene skipping, a swath of annoying characters and forgettable characters alike; The standout is pretty much just Pagan.

I adored this game as a kid but I can't see myself playing it again with how many annoyances I regularly run into with this game.

I really don't want to play this game again

After playing TR2013 and Rise in prep for my first time playing this, MAN it REALLY feels outsourced.

The story was never really a strong suit in the last two games, but they were at least servicable; this game is obsessed with annoyingly long cutscenes filled with conversations composed entirely of expositing things that you really don't need to know. Heck, the game starts you off ultra-stupid with the inciting incident being so insanely absurd, that it entirely mismatches in tone with the last two games (despite supernatural elements being present in both).

The world feels both lacking in content, and so dense with explorable things that I can't get a gauge on whether I'm overwhelmed or underwhelmed; It often feels like everything in the game feels concentrated in one area (The Hidden City).

Some voice acting is really good, Jonah's actor KILLS IT in this game... but then the game will take Lara's obnoxious hints and play them over and over and over again until you turn off the dialogue and switch off subtitles. You can crank up the difficulty, but then you lose the survival instinct when searching for Survival Caches, Relics and Documents during Tomb exploration. In the end, you're either forced to listen to Lara remark on every single thing ever, or just have no additional direction for your own pace. It's either you get handheld to an obnoxious degree, or dropped off a cliff, no in-between.

One thing that truly upsets me to no end is how butchered the movement felt. Sometimes, Lara will grapple onto a hook so far up she'll get forced up into the air to cross a path, and other times, she'll not connect with something right in front of her face. If you hold one direction and jump, then switch to a new direction and jump, there's like a 1/6 chance that Lara will not register your direction change and just fling herself off a cliff in the direction of the last movement option. Sometimes, animations will cancel during a climb or grapple, and you'll plummet to your death for no reason. My personal favourite is when you grapple onto a craggy wall with your axe, and as you're climbing up, Lara decides that the rope is too weak (I guess) as it vanishes into thin air, resulting in a plummet to your death

Visual clarity is also a total mess with this game. There's this ugly piss filter that's present in basically every section of the game, and if not yellow, green. Normally, I'd be alright with it: it establishes atmosphere. Except, in this case, it makes being able to discern where you can actually climb infinitely harder. There were times where a puzzle was as simple as climbing a wall, and I had no idea I could climb the wall since the yellow textures on yellow filter blended together to an extent where I couldn't discern ANYTHING. There's so much clutter, and it all blends together into texture soup. I never struggled with discerning where to climb in any Tomb Raider game like this one.

I speculate that much of this crap comes from the game's outsourcing to Eidos while Crystal Dynamics worked on Avengers. This game certainly feels like it wasn't made by CD, even with the shared engine and assets. The narrative is boring and is paced horribly with the gameplay (something I never felt with the last two games); Features dropped from TR2013 to Rise return in this game only to be BARELY utilised (rope ascender is used to open like 3 doors in the whole game).

I truly, TRULY hate this game.

A cute idea, but when you look at the core of each map, you soon realise that it's a $10 package of essentially Far Cry Arcade maps with annoying narration. Certainly not worth the price for what it is, but at least the assets brought in by this DLC have since spiced up Far Cry Arcade maps a bunch... and guess what? You don't even have to buy the DLC to access said Arcade maps using DLC content. Don't bother buying this unless you either want to see *everything* that Far Cry 5 has ended up being, or if you decide to purchase a version of the game with the season pass.
Whoever designed the Behemoth enemy then decided to put more than one of them in a single room is some kind of sick sadist.

I can't find a single thing to like about this wretched DLC. The setting is really neat, and they could've spun up an interesting buddy cop theme to go along, but absolutely everything falls flat.
- Boring tower missions are back
- Hurk's annoyance is kicked into overdrive and now he's inseparable from you
- Mandatory Guns for Hire companion Hurk is constantly alerting new enemies resulting in an ABSURD number of enemies all the bloody time
- The guns feel like crap to use
- The enemies are insanely spongey and relentless with constant projectile vollies
- Movement is sluggish and unsatisfying
- Clutch Nixon's stunt races are so damn tight that a couple might not even be possible without skipping select checkpoints
- Not to mention, the stunt races are severely lacking in any kind of variety. It's ALL wingsuits with terrain that is almost identical everytime. The most variance is in the "Red Rocket" race, where aiming downwards to rack up speed is slightly more intense.
- Final mission occasionally crashes the game upon initiation
- Said final mission is boring, grindy and uninspired; way too easy compared to the DLC's onslaught of enemy count
- The map is barren and boring to explore
- The structure of the gameplay is repetitive and stupid
Truly awful. The only positive I can think of is that the hallucination missions are kinda cool.

I liked this little romp. I'm big on stealth and survival, and that was what this particular DLC excelled in. Short and sweet, and a neat aesthetic. The finale of the DLC was particularly awful though, being quite the betrayal of all the stealth perk systems that most the gameplay was built upon. Forgettable characters and a crap ending is the most I can knack the DLC for.

this game has a charm I quite like, and it sorta pipelined me into enjoying Sonic. the franchise never clicked with me as a kid, but a fair chance in adulthood helped me reconsider.
despite its charm though, god the camera and Big's entire campaign is a total trainwreck. but it's all worth it for the experiences I had with Sonic, Gamma and Amy. It's certainly dated, but I enjoyed it.