Recent reviews by landlordevil

Beautifully illustrated, immersive world that asks questions a game has never asked me before. Questions of compassion, addiction, economics, society, fascism, and apathy. In every bit of learning about Elysium you learn more about yourself, your own politics and perceptions, and come through it the other side a different person. The voice acting is stellar and offers a slow paced, engaging experience. Paths branch and every choice means something- stick to it and you'll always find something new. This is a game that sticks with you long after the credits roll. Be warned that the topics are heavy, and you have equal opportunity to be a commie cop or an absolute fascist. Content warning for addiction, suicide, racism, slurs, rape, and the eventual death of everything. (This being said, it's also a very, very funny game.) Wishing the developers the best in their legal case against ZA/UM.

Full disclosure, I'm going to finish my current game and probably play another one when I have the time, so it's not that I'm not enjoying it, but when it comes to gameplay, writing, and all of the bugs... I'll get into it.

First off, I appreciate the character creation. You can choose from a multitude of clans, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Experience is awarded throughout the game, with plenty of skills, modifiers, and abilities to gain. Players can change their clothes in preset outfits with their own defense and dexterity modifiers. You can choose from a range of answers in any given conversation- and some of the time these options change the outcome of the game. I just wish they sidestepped some tasteless choices, like having the Tremere clan work with blood magic AND the ability to create earthen protectors (totally not golems, they're gargoyles, ok?)

There's a lot of game mechanics, and some of them work well. The only problem is that your ability to survive stealth and battle sections are dependent on your character's skills, not your personal skills. So if you don't invest in your character's firearms, melee, stealth skills, etc... it doesn't matter how good you play, the game is gonna fight you every step of the way. And there's a LOT of battle sections, which are a huge slog to get through. And if that doesn't do you in, the bugs will- sometimes they work in your benefit, like when one of the bosses clipped through the floor and I could defeat them with zero damage to my person. But sometimes it's 12 different enemies running toward you in an open space environment, but due to item physics you can't jump off of this debris you walked onto and they're hitting you and you try to jump higher to jump over the debris but your character is suspended, falling and leaping simultaneously, until their pitiful death because your bloodshield wasn't working. Sad! Save often.

As for the story, it's an interesting idea with a lot of cool worldbuilding concepts. The internal politics of kindred is complex, and I think the game adequately expresses the kind of robust world that is more easily translatable to the tabeltop RPG the game is based off of. That being said... there is a HUGE racism problem in this game. It's truly heinous. One of the big antagonists (or allies?) of the game are the Kuei-Jin, named with a portmanteau of Mandarin and Japanese words, who are based in Chinatown. The in-game explanation of their existence is that they're foreigners who moved in just a few years ago and have been terrorizing us poor kindred ever since. One of the characters Skelter says that they're so evil, he now understands some of the sh*t he saw in 'nam (So the Kuei-Jin, both Chinese and Japanese, are now also Vietnamese. Which makes sense when your loading screen lets you know they're a race "from the orient".) When you get to Chinatown, you get to meet people voiced by incredibly talented voice actors being forced to ham it up, with English that is clearly written by someone who studied at Mickey Rooney's school for orientalism. It's painful to play through. And it's completely unavoidable.

All in all it's a very unique game, not just in premise but in its aesthetic and musical qualities. That's part of the appeal, and why I got the game in the first place. Of course I want to be a vampire with an eyebrow piercing and a brushed silk shirt! Of COURSE I want to listen to ambient, pseudo-trance music as I jump around downtown Los Angeles! Characters like Velvet Velour and Nines Rodriguez are stylish and cool beyond all measure. It's a stellar cast, with the talent of John DiMaggio, Grey Griffin, Dana Lee, Erin Fitzgerald, Michael Gough... seriously, look through the cast. It's incredible. It just sucks that the game is hampered by its own gameplay mechanics and its own poor taste.

One of, if not my ultimate favorite Resident Evil game. And for good reason! The unsettling atmosphere of the village makes for light but compelling horror, with a heavy dose of action that doesn't feel too excessive. It's endlessly quotable and legitimately funny, which is a tone shift from other horror/action games and is sorely needed. You can kick a guy so hard his head explodes.

I've been a fan of Persona 4 since 2011 and playing this feels like coming home. The 2D animated cutscenes run a little choppy but I do own a very old non-gaming laptop. However, everything else works perfectly, so don't let the high GB scare you. Quintessential JRPG experience imho, and a great deal considering it's at LEAST 60 hours of gameplay

I played for 15 hours because my dog needed attention (the game doesn't really take 15 hours to complete lol) But it's a super interesting premise, good sneak mechanics, and a nice mix of atmospheric and jumpscare horror! Will definitely play again to try and get another ending...

I'm someone who gets scared pretty easily, but that doesn't mean that Pamali doesn't deliver on the scare front. Atmospherically this game is top-notch, and the way that your every action effects the scares you get means you can play this game a variety of ways without ever getting the same experience twice. Also, each chapter has ~30 endings, so you definitely get your money's worth.

I absolutely LOVE this game. I'm still holding out some hope for another installment, but even replaying this game over a decade later stands the test of time. The clique heavy, multi-layered open world is so fun to interact with, and Jimmy Hopkins is such a fun and enriching protagonist that even biking around town doing nothing has some appeal.

Fun multi-player, good community, and great for just playing with friends.