Recent reviews by BurntCornFlakes

Peak Steam Deck

Great game, glad to have it on steam after all these years. Two major issues though. First, the price is too damn high. Secondly, it requires the third party Rockstar launcher and account.

Let me give you an idea of how that went:

During installation on my steam deck, I encountered some issues while logging into the launcher (beyond not remembering my account details from ~4 years ago).

On my first attempt it threw out an error relating to Steam and required me to restart the launcher. Easy enough. Then I got another error relating to an internet connection problem, and to restart again. During this restart it hard crashed the Deck and I had to power it back on.

I then realized that I was trying to install the launcher at the exact moment of steam's weekly Tuesday maintenance. No problem, I just had to wait five minutes and try again. At this point I had to give up and reset my password, so it send a code to my email, I got on my phone to reset the password, and finally logged in. And then it forced me to verify my email. So I got my phone again, found the email, entered the code, and then FINALLY I was in!

And then it forced me to PERMANENTLY link my Steam and Rockstar accounts. Guess that means there's no family sharing! Plus it's entirely possible I had two accounts for both my old and new emails, sure hope I didn't use the wrong one. (In addition, I hear that if you lose access to your Rockstar account you are no longer able to play any of the Rockstar games you own on Steam thanks to the "permanent" part I mentioned).

Now I have successfully launched the game. What a great and very necessary process! There's no multiplayer, so there's especially no reason for an external account.

It would be nice for the game to actually just launch when I press the launch button.

It was also a bit of an extra hassle on Deck since you have to use the steam button+trackpad to actually interact with the launcher/installer with a cursor. No controller support there.

Time for Valve to crack down on 3rd party launchers. Won't change this review to positive until then.

Where the content at? Enemy variants ain't enough. Also, blocking the game from sale in over a hundred countries is dumb.

It starts out fun but overstays its welcome by about 5 hours. After a while the gameplay and puzzles get repetitive and the narrative gets stale. The cutscenes are horribly tedious to sit through and are filled with empty dialogue. Both characters are unlikable and make exactly zero progress working through their issues for the entirety of the game. You spend half your time running around in random nonsensical locations while being held hostage and abused by a ridiculous talking book. Maybe the characters deserve it after genociding several species and torturing innocent creatures, but the player did nothing to deserve this!

On the technical and artistic side: The character animations are incredibly floaty and obvious motion capture that ruin my immersion without fail. The EA servers are trash tier (as expected) and simply joining into coop Is always a chore. However, I do need to note my appreciation for the Friend's Pass. Not having to buy a second copy of the game for online coop is nice.

I expected much better based on reviews, but was ultimately disappointed.

Game is fun, but... performance is trash, progression system is a chore, premium price (in addition to micro-transactions), and tons of DRM:

Always online requirement (except for free-play, with NO progression). Xbox account required and linked to Steam account, meaning no family sharing or profiles. Physically handing your controller to a friend works, but only if you're OK with your driver/safety rating being tanked. No split-screen, not that you would be able to run it.

With progression locked to an always online system you won't even be able to enjoy free-play when the servers inevitably shut down, much less the campaign or local multiplayer.

I love modern gaming.

This is an unexpectedly good game. Could use some gameplay tweaks here and there, but the core mechanics are decent. Level design and overall feel of this game reminds me of The Surge, another good Soulslike, but does an even better job of emulating a FromSoft world. The artwork and world-building are excellent, and the whole game performs well even on handhelds. The voice acting is also very good in my opinion, which I hadn't expected from a primarily Korean developer.

Edit: The first major balance update is a bit disappointing. I was hoping for changes to the combat mechanics to make some builds a bit more usable, as well as a health/damage nerf to one or two extra difficult bosses. Unfortunately, I think they went overboard by nerfing a ton of enemy, mini-boss, and boss health/damage/stagger, while simultaneously buffing the AI summon. No real changes to the already extremely spammable throwables that make quick work of some bosses.

Probably a more enjoyable game now overall, but I feel like it would have been better off with some fine-tuned balance changes instead.

Welcome to Steam, Blizzard! Sadly, you are not the same Blizzard we used to love.

How about we don't mush all the COD games into one confusing amalgamation. What an absolutely stupid idea. I'd rather you just leave Steam again at this point.

A great port by Nixxes, who really should be doing every Sony PC port in the future. Wish Sony would have them fix up the TLOU1 port that Naughty Dog and Iron Galaxy botched.

Anyway, 5950x, 3080 Ti, 3440x1440 ultrawide high/max settings, no RT, DLSS enabled, generally staying around 100-144fps. Could definitely smooth it out with a little tinkering but it feels and looks great regardless. Not a single crash so far.

Keyboard and mouse controls aren't completely broken on launch. (Which shouldn't be a consideration, but TLOU1 had mouse stutter for months). Using a 3rd party controller (8bitdo Ultimate Bluetooth) gives you options for experimental vibration or traditional vibration. Experimental felt pretty bad on the Ultimate controller due to its basic rumble motors. (It just rumbled at different amounts at all times). Using a controller with more advanced rumble features might give better results but I'm going to use basic rumble for now. Of course, using a wired Dualsense will give you the full next gen haptic/rumble experience you get on ps5.

The performance compared to ps5 isn't quite as good. Max framerate is definitely higher depending on your rig and preference, but I did have some stutter when loading new areas through rifts, and loading time was a little bit longer than I remember on PS5. Absolutely reasonable performance for a launch, especially considering I have my games on a (probably slower) non-OS SSD.

As far as the game itself goes... It's not bad. It definitely goes in a more kid friendly direction. The protagonists are compassionate and kind to a fault, making them great role models, but also losing a lot of their character. The not-so-hidden adult humor found everywhere in the original games are core to their identity, and that has been toned way down in this reboot. That's not to say there aren't any, but the majority of jokes and themes are far more generic and clean.

The Gunplay is well done (though the camera and aiming controls feel really odd, even on ps5). Theres no awkward hold-to-aim controls, it all feels very modern and smooth. Normal movement feels good, and there are some much appreciated sprint and dodge buttons. Platforming, however, is a bit of a miss. When you sprint and jump you don't keep your momentum, making you feel like the game is artificially slowing you down when you try to jump to another platform. It feels very unresponsive and causes a lot of deaths on jumps that felt doable. There's also an abundance of invisible walls blocking any exploration outside of the "proper" exploration paths, making the game feel even more linear than it already does. Getting stuck on objects and floating in the air is incredibly common, so much so that the game will give you a kick to the side if you are stuck for more than a few seconds. They were clearly aware of this issue but decided to just let the game smack you to safety rather than minimize the areas you can get stuck in.

All that said, both the game and port are solid. It's not going to scratch that nostalgic itch you may have for the originals, but a younger audience - or anyone new to the franchise - will probably have an enjoyable time.

Now we just have to hope they port the original trilogy + deadlocked to PC. Co-op and multiplayer on Steam would be amazing, and we'll probably never see it happen.

If you know your next update will make your community upset, perhaps reconsider...?