Recent reviews by j

I was an early adopter of Ark: Survival Evolved, the game has come a long way since its inception many years ago, but this, this is a piss-take on what once was. It's evident that in order to have a good experience you need an RTX 4000 series GPU using Frame Generation, as whenever anything complex happens on screen (many particles, dino fights etc), you drop roughly 70% of your performance.

While staring at a rock I can hold 144fps (capped, I do have 240 hz but don't want to blow up my PC), but when looking at the ocean it dipped to 40. This is while on a 13900K and 3080 Ti.

It is also evident that the developers simply ported the game over to UE5 and enabled max graphical options and didn't bother optimizing anything.

The gameplay is the same, it's just not worth $67.50 NZD (on sale), this is just an insulting money-grab really.

Quick Summary:

It's an amazing game with incredible physics and graphics. I feel as though some areas could have had more love, such as enemy responses, weapons (number of), attachments could have been more in-depth, and the whole stealth system could have been more intuitive (it's realistic, when you're too close to enemies and shoot a suppressed weapon, they actually hear it as you would in real life). I think sometimes when you take out 2 enemies in rapid succession but the entire base gets alerted even though there were no witnesses and they wouldn't have had time to radio it in, I think that's a bit crappy but it is what it is, nothing is ever perfect and my review should hopefully deter those expectations.

It is a great game, the story is decent but it kinda leaves you feeling empty or like there could have been more to it, like more cinematics or more meaningful story line.

Solid 8/10 however, would recommend playing through it at least once, and don't recommend the hardest difficulty. I tried hardest and it was borderline insane, this game requires a lot of patience.

EqualizerAPO is free and offers waaaaay more options than this program does. At this point, the software is nice and easy to use especially if you're a beginner, but it's not really something I'd pay for.

Most realistic GT3 & GT4 simulation by countless miles. Kunos have really set the grounds for what sim racing should be, and others can only aspire to achieve what they have at this point.

Pros:

The sound is groundbreaking, like if you have a great set of speakers or an amazing set of headphones, the sound is breathtaking.
The visuals, albeit require a somewhat decent gpu to make the most of, are incredible even on medium settings at 1440p - I'm running a 2060 @ 3440x1440 and achieve 90~ fps with up to 30 other cars on track.
The simulation for both classes is absolutely incredible. You really feel like you're there in the drivers seat.

Cons:

The visuals are extremely demanding on highest settings, so you'll need a really beefy PC to run this at optimal settings.
Although leagues exist, the built-in multiplayer lacks a playerbase, not sure why, maybe it's the lack of content outside what the game was designed to hold, maybe people struggle to grasp the realism, who knows.
Besides needing a beefy pc and there being a lack of core multiplayer, there really aren't any cons. Highly recommend adding this to your collection if you haven't already.

This is one of those games that ‘could’ be amazing.
The matchmaking system is somewhat terrible even with the latest update, either placing you in USA (I’m New Zealand), or Asian servers.
Quite often you’re placed with a non-English speaking team mate and therefore have 0 communication.
The cheaters are fairly well handled, coming from someone that avidly enjoys CSGO and comes across cheaters daily. The report system yields results, which is a huge plus.
I have a Ryzen 2600 and 1050Ti and average 70-150 FPS (depending on area and how many players there are). So the recent client improvements are showing.
Overall I’d rate 7/10, but the developers are working on improving the gameplay experience for everyone actively, so I’d recommend buying.

I just wish we had a functioning anti-cheat. VAC is a complete joke.