Recent reviews by Kevin

In my review a 5/10 is normal. If a score is a 5 it means I went into it expecting 'A' and got 'A' out of it. Anything below means I was expecting more, anything above means I got more than I was expecting.

BACKGROUND

Got the game in the October Humble Monthly.

Played the previous reboot back in 2014. Really enjoyed it and thought for $5 it was an insane value.

TOTAL TIME PLAYING

Just over 8 hours. That was enough for me to personally beat the game as well as do a few of the challenge tombs.

SPECS FOR PLAY THROUGH

- AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0 GHz
- GTX 1080
- 8 Gb DDR3 RAM @ 668 MHz
- 7200 RPM HDD
- LG Ultrawide

VISUALS (8/10)
This is a very pretty game. Running around in the snow leaves footprints and trails and getting out of the water leaves Lara ringing out her hair. Some of the explotions in the late game look like they were ripped from an early PS3 title, but aside from that it's a really pretty game.

PERFORMANCE / OPTIMIZATION (9/10)
Pretty great running game. The only few times it dropped in FPS was during some clearly CPU intensive moments. Since the 8350 isn't comparable to the recommended specs (an i7-3770k), I can't really complain. The video settings tab had a lot of options to tweak the game to run on your system.

SOUNDS(5/10)
The natural sound is pretty amazing. Hearing the snow compact when Lara walks over it, trees snapping when you land on them, and other natural sounds was a nice touch. The guns sound about normal, but the constant grunting from Lara gets pretty annoying. Often times the sounds give away enemies. Not in a good way, but suddenly things will start to echo or the music will pick up and it means an enemy is nearby. Really not helpful for the whole stealth aspect.

SOUNDTRACK(2/10)
I had to lookup if this game had a soundtrack after finishing it. I don't remember any part of it aside from it forecasting the presence of enemies way too often.

STORY(5/10)
Very forgettable with an uninspired official ending. Keep watching after the credits. While the story itself was some what interesting, having Lara constantly complaining about her daddy issues got rid of a lot of my interest.

GAMEPLAY(2/10)
This game is super fun to run around in. The platforming is some of the most fun you can have in gaming, but there is very little of it. In fact, most of it is a third person shooter that doesn't feel too fluid. The hand to hand combat turns into button mashing, and not in a good way like the Batman games or Middle Earth. Oh and the quick time events. I'm a little offended that they made it nearly the entire game and ruined the final fight with one. It was so much more entertaining without those. I also don't think there has been a game where I haven't cared less about the collectibles. Around 40% in I just stopped picking them up so I didn't have to keep listening to someone talk about a "Old Stamp".

IMMERSION(4/10)
Not terrible, just not good. The best example of this is when solving puzzles. It's a ton of fun when Lara doesn't spoil it within the first five seconds. I wish I was making this up. Nearly every puzzle if you take one step in the wrong way Lara says something like "Maybe I should..." and gives away the solution to the puzzle. Let me struggle for a bit. I'm here to explore the tomb, don't tell me what to do right away.

FUN(7/10)
Exploring - Tons of fun.
Puzzles - Tons of fun when Lara isn't talking.
Platforming - Tons of fun.
Gun play - Blah.

REPLAYABILITY(3/10)
After you beat it you can go back and collect some more old relics, but I didn't feel inspired to in the slightest.

VALUE(3/10)
Right now the lowest historical low of this game is $23, aside from the humble monthly. This is not a $23 game in terms of value. You get around 9 hours of entertaining game play before it just turns into a collect-em-all. If it drops down to $5 like the previous tomb raider, this score will get bumped up to am 8.

CONCLUSION(48/100)

Mediocre game overall. If the historical low drops to $5 it would bump the value score up to an 8, bringing the overall score to a 53, in which case it would score above average and I'd recommend it. Just not at the current prices.

BACKGROUND

Got the game in the October Humble Monthly.

I'm not sure if I've played something like this before. The closest I can think of is Papers Please, but that feels like a slight stretch.



TOTAL TIME PLAYING

Just over 3 hours. That was enough for me to personally beat the game. the average time on HLTB is 4 hours.

SPECS FOR PLAY THROUGH

- AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0 GHz
- GTX 1080
- 8 Gb DDR3 RAM @ 668 MHz
- 7200 RPM HDD
- LG Ultrawide

PERFORMANCE

The graphic style isn't demanding (that isn't to say it's a "bad" looking game). I was able to maintain full 60 FPS the entire time, and I'd be surprised if any modern day machine cannot do the same.

PROS

+Amazing story. I played through this in two sittings and all I could think about in between the two sessions was going back and playing the rest.
+ As soon as you start to feel overwhelmed with the massive influx in characters, the game ends. This could be viewed as a con, but I don't think a game like this would benefit from character-over-load.
+ As I mentioned earlier, the graphics are pretty interesting. Everything has a flat look to it. Really interesting.

CONS

- Orwell does a lot right. Unfortunately, I feel like it held my hand far too much. Instead of looking through a wide range of documents, the game was constantly pushing me into specific documents. This would be super hard to work around, but towards the end the choices and clues became very obvious and the game lost it's "detective" feel it built up so well in the first half.
- As far as I could tell, you can't get anything wrong. Sure some of the "conflicting evidence" could be misdiagnosed, but
from my play-through adding useless information just got a sarcastic response from your boss. No real consequences.
CONCLUSION

Alright. So I really liked the game. It was great and a pretty phenomenal gaming experience. At this time I am going to recommend it if found on sale around $5. It's far too short to be worth $10.

I'm really hoping a sequel or an entire new story comes out. With that new game I really want the choices to be less linear. Hold my hand less, let me mess things up, and let things pivot around my mistakes.

I CAN ONLY BUY ONE WOLFENSTEIN GAME, WHICH ONE SHOULD I GET?

The New Order. Hands down. The feel of this game is what every shooter aspires to have. The story is rather good for a first person shooter like this, the level design is vastly superior to Old Blood, and the guns feel better to shoot.

BACKGROUND

This is the second Wolfenstein game I've played. I wrapped up The Old Blood last month

Typicall play shooters so this fit the bill.

Purchased the game on sale for $5. Played through the game once, might go back for collectables.

TOTAL TIME PLAYING

10 Hours 45 Minutes (This was to beat the story on default and grabbing around 25% of the collectables).

SPECS FOR PLAY THROUGH

- AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0 GHz
- GTX 1080
- 8 Gb DDR3 RAM @ 668 MHz
- 7200 RPM HDD
- LG Ultrawide

OVERALL PORT

Running the same engine as Old Blood, so the same concepts still apply.

The game runs very smoothly on my mismatched system. Doesn't seem to need strong single core performance from the CPU, so it's more reliant on GPU. One complaint is in order to really adjust the FOV or anything else you need to install the id5Tweaker mod. Super easy to install, just a heads up.

PROS

+ Very pretty
+ Amazing gun mechanics. I thought Old Blood had a nice overall feel, the LaserKraftWerk is now in my top ten favorite weapons in any game.
+ Great animations.
+ I don't think this game dipped below 60 fps once. It was a very enjoyable game from start to finish.
+ If you read my review on Old Blood you'll see I claimed that 4 (ish) hours was the perfect amount of time for a game like this. I was wrong. I felt that Old Blood was a decent timing because there was only so much the game had to offer. This game is nearly 3 times as long and I enjoyed every second of it.

CONS

- The need for id5Tweaker is a tad annoying, but once it's installed you're good to go.

CONCLUSION

If you can find this game for under $10 during a sale, go for it. Solid shooter and tons of fun. Would highly recommend over Old Blood, even though that is a solid game as well.

BACKGROUND

This is the first Wolfenstein game I've played.

Typicall play shooters so this fit the bill.

Purchased the game on sale for $5. Played through the game once, might go back for collectables.

TOTAL TIME PLAYING

3 Hours 45 Minutes (This was to beat the story on default and grabbing around 25% of the collectables).

SPECS FOR PLAY THROUGH

- AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0 GHz
- GTX 1080
- 8 Gb DDR3 RAM @ 668 MHz
- 7200 RPM HDD
- LG Ultrawide

OVERALL PORT

The game runs very smoothly on my mismatched system. Doesn't seem to need strong single core performance from the CPU, so it's more reliant on GPU. One complaint is in order to really adjust the FOV or anything else you need to install the id5Tweaker mod. Super easy to install, just a heads up.

PROS

+ Very pretty
+ Just the right amount of time for the story. Not too long not too short.
+ Amazin gun mechanics. Feels very nice.
+ Great animations.
+ Was able to hold 60 FPS for 99% of the game. Massive stuttering occured when in a cave nearby a river.

CONS

- The need for id5Tweaker is a tad annoying, but once it's installed you're good to go.
- Kind of expensive for default price. Not much gameplay aside from replays.

CONCLUSION

If you can find this game for under $7.50 during a sale, go for it. Solid shooter and tons of fun.

BACKGROUND

Not to good at most puzzle games, but fairly familiar with first person shooters. I originally bought this game on the PS3 for 30, and then re-bought it on Steam for 7.50. At the time of the review, I am replaying the campaign, so that will only be briefly touched on.

SPECS FOR PLAY THROUGH

- AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0ghz
- GTX 760 4GB
- 8gb DDR3 @ 668
- 7200 RPM HDD

OVERALL PORT

It's a PC game. Valve makes PC games. So it's perfect.

PROS

+ Entertaining campaign
+ HOLY POOP WORKSHOP SUPPORT
+ Beautiful mechanics
+ Feeling of success after each puzzle never fades
+ Learning curve is perfect

CONS

- Can be a tad time consuming and mentally straining.
- Certain puzzles seem some what repetitive. With thousands of maps, however, this is un-avoidable.

CONCLUSION

The fact that this game has Workshop support should be enough of a reason to go and pick it up, however, it is on sale quite frequently. I have spent far more than the average person has on this game and have no regrets.

BACKGROUND

I have never played a Tomb Raider before, so I am fairly unsure of how the others compare to it. I have played a multitude of 3rd person "shooters" with a focus on action and adventure. I picked this game up for $4 during the "Exploration Sale".

SPECS FOR PLAYTHROUGH

- AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0ghz
- GTX 760 4GB
- 8gb DDR3 @ 668
- 7200 RPM HDD

OVERALL PORT

Phenomenal. Ran flawlessly and looked amazing while doing so.

PROS

+ Very strong story
+ Feeling of exploration is fairly well done.
+ Weapons feel good to use, and rewarding to kill with.
+ Graphics allow for very immersive experience.
+ One of the best ports out there. Runs perfectly without hiccups.

CONS

- Hair occasionally took me out the moment, might just be individual card issues.
- Later in the game, enemies seem to become bullet "sponges".
- Very small weapon variety. Shotgun, SMG, Pistol, Bow, and Climber Axe make up your arsenal.


CONCLUSION

Having bought this for $4, I feel like I got away with robbery. Highly recommended to action and adventure lovers.


EDIT : Corrected the Ghz on my specs. I wish I had this CPU at 8.0ghz.

Beautiful game, still holds up today. Great story, decent graphics, and awesome gameplay.