Recent reviews by Daex

Toy car football which somehow feels better than any "real" football game ever released.

Really didn't plan on reviewing, but noticed a lot of people asking if this is worth $15 on sale. Short version - definitely yes. Now onto specifics...

Offline modes are very much improved. Expansion teams for MyGM/MyLeague, with expansion draft of course, and customization options for those are really cool, for example if you're looking to create a legitimate historic team court and things, you can actually get pretty close using just in-game editor. Only bad part is that you can only create 2 custom jerseys (home and away) per team. MyCareer is a vast improvement over last year, specifically due to absence of the Spike Lee story. There's a new "story" so to speak, it irks some people, but it's not too bad and you still have control over the entire season. One downside is due to new player archetypes, you're effectively reduced to a role player even when you reach your maximum. Personally I can still hit triple-double average on Hall of Fame difficulty with my primary player, but the new stat caps severely limit the player potential. Ironically, you can't at all play some of the iconic player archetypes such as true all-around, 3 and D, or Dunker/Defensive Specialist.

Online modes on PC are... disgusting. First off there's a smaller player base, so you're bound to run into some queue times, or a completely dead queue very late in the night. Also, the game is susceptible to cheats, for example, only couple of months ago they blocked one particular cheat from MyTeam auction house, which was blatantly obvious and apparent and had very bad impact on economy. I won't go into details here as I don't want to be seen as advertising cheating, but I think it's very obvious they are weak on the ban hammer side, and the game itself is weak on protection. Also there is the unavoidable server lag for online modes, couple of sources close to the company explained that all servers are in Virginia, US, even the EU or Asian servers.

Gameplay is improved over the last year, primary addition being various types of Pick and Roll defenses, you can literally see different teams using different defenses and things like that. However I feel it's important to note that stock difficulty settings are sorely lacking in realism/simulation aspect. They are all very much arcade. However, there are lot of simulation slider settings listed at OperationSports for example, and once you tweak them, the game really shines. Of course, there are still couple of bad animations that can't be completely avoided, but custom sliders help out a lot in this regard. I should note that by default MyCareer doesn't allow custom slider settings, but there's a mod tool that can be used to accomplish this.

Graphics of course you can easily see in any random gameplay video - they are obviously improved over last year(s). One part that sort of falls into this category that is dramatically worse are the replays. About 50% of the time, the replay will use the silly rim camera, and you won't be able to see the play at all.

In summary, as you can probably tell from the hours I played, I find this to be a great game, not like we really have a choice on PC when it comes to basketball. After thoroughly playing most of the game modes (except Play Now Online & All Star Team-Up), I'd easily recommend this to any basketball fan. However, keep in mind that online modes can be very frustrating, and if that's your primary reason for purchasing, it might be wise to wait and see how 2k18 turns out in that regard.

Amazing game to just sit behind the wheel of an amazing car, and drive enjoying the scenery. It is not a simulation, but it doesn't pretend to be.

Oh, and the multiplayer and casino servers work just fine as of November 24th.

Disclaimer: I almost exclusively play MyCareer and MyPark so that's what my review is about. After finishing incredibly boring and distasteful first season (Spike Lee shenanigans), it turns into a pretty good game. Rebounding is seriously improved over the past few editions, and park is better balanced (still not perfect, of course, but at least it's not full of 7'3 people). Stat caps are serious business this time around, and they really help that balance. However, it does mean that you hit the wall pretty early in terms of progression and then it gets really slow afterwards. Graphics are really nice and the game works fine for me in 4k on a single 980ti (60 FPS, no hiccups). Bit of a downside is that MyCareer still doesn't offer proper challenge and balance at higher difficulties. For example on Superstar, my team will simply lose more games than on All-Star, but I am still able to average around triple double (31-11-9) on my All-Around SF in 2nd season. Seems that increasing the difficulty just makes your team miss more, and other team hit absurd shots. But then again, this is really no different than before.

As this is relatively longer review, I feel like I should put this out there - I am a huge RPG fan. There are very few things that could put me off from playing and liking a Fallout game. That being said, whatever expectation I had, this game delivered. Huge, immersive world, plenty of things to do, nice touch of innovation with new crafting system, as well as settlement building.

The story starts prior to the nuclear devastation (as everyone and their mother probably know from the trailers) - I guess authors wanted to make the story more personal. You and your family successfully escape into a Vault, *MILD SPOILERS UNTIL THE END OF PARAGRAPH* but as we already know that Vaults have much more sinister purpose from previous games, it's no surprise that things don't turn out as expected. After a slightly disturbing development, you are back out to the good old wasteland. To avoid talking too much about the actual content, I will just say that the story is certainly passable quality, with a mild twist (nothing terribly unexpected) towards the end. In terms of other storylines in the game, I personally found them more interesting than the main quest, particularly faction related ones, which do conclude together in a bittersweet fashion. In general, there is plenty of non-essential content although a good part of it is related to settlements, which do have quests that repeat themselves after a while. Minor downside could be the fact that there is very little replay value in the game - I do not see myself trying a different type of character anytime soon. There is simply not that many things that I could do different in the game (aside from focusing on different skills perhaps such as melee based character for example).

Graphics are nice and colorful - essentially unimpressive, but decent enough upgrade from previous games. Won't dwell on this as usual since you can deduce for yourself from videos/screenshots online.

In terms of the gameplay, the form is more or less plays the same as the previous two games from the series: huge world, free to explore and head into any direction and find people, quests, loot, small pieces of the story and what not. Mechanics, however, leave a lot to be desired. Leveling system is simplified (basically skills & perks are merged into just perks) however it is very obvious and easy to use (take that as a positive or negative as you will). V.A.T.S. no longer freezes time, it just slows it and that seems as a reasonable change. Pip-boy is absolutely terrible and this is a fact. Another case of interface that may be necessary for consoles but really has no place on the PC. It's not quite as bad as for example Skyrim interface, but it's really more of the same interface that we've seen in previous games. In fact it's arguably worse because there are more menus, sub-menus, and more scrolling through lists than ever. Especially if you hoard huge amounts of items in a stash somewhere (who doesn't, really?) it can really get out of control, even with limited sorting options that game provides. The game does give you an option to loot items from the containers directly with a single button (in addition to ability to access the container normally) which is nice.

Companions come with affection level which is based on some decisions and some smaller activities such as stealing, picking locks (actually I don't get this one, how can a person like you more from the fact you picked 50 locks??) and so on. They do have interesting stories for the most part, but in terms of combat assistance, personally I found them somewhat lacking altogether, especially the dog (unfortunately).

Power armor was changed substantially - new power armor is basically a limited commodity - it spends Fusion Cores for normal functioning. In reality, you can probably use it all the time if you want - there is plenty of cores around the world and also vendors do sell them. This change did open doors for some interesting situations - your own power armor can be stolen, and you can also for example steal the core from unaware opponent's power armor to essentially shut it down.

Dialogue system could be discussed at lengths, but short version is that it is sorely lacking. Almost every dialogue in the game is condensed into 4 options which are the same across all dialogues. On top of that, you can't even approach people and talk to them outside of story/quest related encounters. This could be a huge downside for people who enjoyed "There's a new sheriff in town!.." type of dialogue from previous games.

Crafting system somewhat resembles one that we've seen in Skyrim, and it really works great when it comes to weapon/armor modding. There are lot of customization options, and what really impresses me is the flavor that some of the modifications bring. For example, one of the "top tier" power armor upgrade builds a Stealth-Boy in, but you may choose to keep the previous "tier" which boosts your Strength while wearing the armor (additional carry capacity). All in all, the system is excellent.

Settlement building is basically a game inside the game - it does mechanically revolve around the same crafting system as the weapons, but can be avoided completely with basically no major disadvantage (as opposed to weapon/armor modding which can be useful and absolutely needed at higher difficulty). Building stuff can be fun, there is reasonable amount of options but the interface can be quite annoying. There is no top-down type of view and lining up the edges of various walls, fences, and objects while walking in first or third person view can be a daunting task until you spend some time to understand the system. Even when you do understand the limitations of said system, it is frankly just disgusting a lot of the times. Be that as it may, since its effect on the main story is very limited one way or the other, I find this a nice touch of innovation and wouldn't mind seeing more of this in the future, with some upgrades.

While all of this may seem like a lot of perceived negatives, for me personally it just doesn't take away from the overall quality of the game so much. 200 hours later I am still having a blast while listening to "Crawl Out Through The Fallout"! Should mention that soundtrack is similar to before, with some nice additions. P.S. I still miss Three Dog.

Excellent old-school RPG with turn based combat. As the case with other Spiderweb Software games, it's slightly difficult to recommend though. The game delivers in terms of great world to explore, character development and interesting story as well. However, for people used to current generation of RPGs with full voice-over, character personality, choices, it may be difficult to get into this. It is really closer to Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale type of experience. Coupled with the isometric 2D graphics entire dialogue and quest content is delivered through huge amount of text. Don't get me wrong - story is excellent, but from experience trying to share Avernum series with friends, it really isn't everyone's cup of tea. So, please take my (and others') recommendation with a grain of salt.

The game is natural step forward from the previous remake (Avernum: Escape From The Pit) and while minor upgrades are there, it mostly plays and looks the same. Unfortunately, some of the interface problems are still there, for example the infamous inventory issue is still there (when you press "I", inventory opens, but you can't close it with "I"), but these are truly minor in my opinion.

It's worth to mention that when it comes to system requirements, you can probably play this on your washing machine too, so if you are stuck somewhere with a decade old laptop or something, you can probably play this game without problems.

Only for the die-hard JRPG fans.

The game fails to deliver in my opinion, due to extremely repetitive nature. Even after getting past mundane and numerous battles, the story doesn't shine and player interaction even less. The dialogues are mostly "click-through" with occasional "choices" which don't seem to matter all that much.

Additionally, DLCs bring extremely good weapons at the beginning of the game which messes up the item progression but I suppose if you really wanted, you could opt out of using them.

Extremely difficult puzzle game. Likely the hardest game that I ever played - even to the point to ask myself, is it even a game!

That being said, it is highly addictive at first and you really do get a sense of achievement after solving a puzzle.

Downside is that you will probably reach a point where game becomes too much to bother - problems later in the game require literally hours to solve. However, you are bound to have some fun time before that happens!

Decent simulation of running a game development studio on a conceptual level. I mean, who didn't dream at some point about creating their own super-amazing game - Game Dev Tycoon somewhat delivers.

On the mechanic side I believe it really shines with simple presentation and doesn't bog the player down with charts and statistics typical for the genre. Graphics are neat and do the job just fine.

Personally couldn't see the replay value after "completing" the game but then considering the price of the game during any kind of sale, it's not really expected either. Would say 8/10.

Very interesting game for people who either have basic knowledge about cars, or trying to learn about it. I suppose it's really possible to find a solution for every mission by checking every single part on the car and replacing it but this would be quite boring and mundane so I really don't think it's for people who are clueless about the thematic. Sometimes customer has an idea what's going on and tells you straight up, sometimes they just want you to repair all the damaged parts and it can be difficult to narrow down the last part or two that need repair/replacement.

In terms of reality/simulation it's definitely simplified but the game is featuring all basic parts and especially the usual suspects that mechanics are dealing with. A lot of missions are based on changing oil, filters, or timing but then again I guess this is most common in reality as well.

Progression is such that you start in a basic garage, and as you work through the missions you gain access to better garage with additional tools for tuning vehicles. You can also shop for upgrades (faster unbolting, discount at parts shop, etc.)

I would add that on graphics side it's really well done, the parts look very realistic. Damage can also be observed visually, for example worn rubber, or corroded metal can indicate that part needs replacement before even checking it out.

One negative that I would mention is lack of absolutely any kind of help or tutorial system - you're completely on your own. I guess this can really put off a number of people who are not really familiar with all of this.