Recent reviews by janni9009

Probably the single most satisfying to beat rhythm game. I keep having to change up my inputs to consistently hit Perfects on tighter segments and special notes (my wrists are thankful), the controls are great (almost any KB/Mouse/Gamepad key at any time, and highly responsive), and so is the song selection.
Still got a couple extra worlds to go, and perfects especially in Neo Cosmos, probably gonna spend another 10h on those, particularly Third Sun.
And that brings me to my gripes:
Checkpointing could use some work though. Some levels pummel you by sheer endurance.
Also holds are awkward. Their release window is way too tight... or off? What I mean is, key travel will mess you up on a lot of boards. There should be some form of calibration for these, especially with some fast pattern like a triangle right after.
And some (near-)overlapping tracks can get genuinely confusing (the hit tiles lighting up sometimes makes it worse instead of helping)

//Re-Edit: 416 attempts later I finally beat XS-X with +1.35% on the first clear. 17 attempts later, I bumped it to 3.59. Latest clear didn't bump score, but only took 4 attempts... It's a fun map, but holy crap was learning it ever a pain.
Now just Neo Cosmos remains to finish >100%ing and medal-perfect...

Alright, after quite a bit more time using this driver...
I have some big issues with it.
There's ghosting even at 120hz, which I do not notice on PS5 hw.
HMD and controller firmware updates are *mandatory* even after the initial support fw, this is horrible, some chipsets still refuse to work for controller updates, and not everyone has a $600 dedicated firmware updater (PS5) around.
90hz mode causes some games to not launch or lock up.
Controllers are always registered even if not connected once during that session... SteamVR Input generally handles this gracefully but legacy apps may not, when using another pair of controllers (i.e. Valve Index) with the HMD.
Both controllers are also required during setup.
There is no way to turn off the controllers, without toggling Bluetooth system-wide, or un-pairing them.

Short and sweet. Movement is damn solid, no level is too frustrating, mod support especially using workshop is awesome (though they can't save).

More and more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ broken since Epic took over.
Matchmaking now looks like this:
Joining... Error, server full (why the hell was I queued to it then?)
Joining... Error, not all players connected (to a match that can be latejoined)
Joining... Error, not all players connected (10 more times)
Joining... Error, server full
This can repeat for literally 20 minutes every time you queue, no matter at what time.

Training is also completely busted, if the timer goes over even once in aerial (which it will if you're juggling), all future balls that touch the ground will instantly pop making it impossible to complete.
Ranked only for "fun" modes like snow day, rumble and hoops is also blatantly moronic. And where the ♥♥♥♥ did dropshot go?
Speaking of which, how much does it cost to have an extra mode running? Did 4V4 *really* need to switch weekly with Knockout?
Trading being removed is also a sick, moneygrubbing joke.

I want a spinoff game based on that golf stage.
Also the bossfights are peak, would replay any time.

I don't wanna think about the amount of Coffee I've had to drink to single-handedly push out Coffee for nearly 20 days straight with common double orders and post-closing-time customers...

The most fun and immersive game I've played in a long time.
Movement and combat, the main elements of this game are incredibly fluent and satisfying. You start out with a slightly limited moveset to get used to the controls, and gain some extra abilities over time (dive jumping, air dashing), and every single one of them feels perfectly responsive, making it really easy to chain an awesome combo together. Playing with a PS5 DualSense controller personally, auto-aim is a must. And I gotta say... It's the best auto-aim I've ever used. No awful camera-snapping, no near-miss tracking, etc. The enemy is in your view? It gets a circle on it, and you can shoot it. (If you think about it, IRL you have *arms* too that you can adjust your gun with... no need to lock aim to dead-center vision)
Story wise, it doesn't take itself too seriously, yet the meta-humor isn't delivered in the usual painful ways, you can actually laugh at it again and again, and evidently hasn't gotten stale over the last 9 years (Steam release was 4 years after the initial XBONE release). There's even swear and gore filters for the light-hearted (though the swear filter may take away some of the humor, I haven't checked if it replaces or just bleeps/silences words)
The difficulty is just right too, it's not "hard for the sake of being hard", nor is it too easy (I've died a fair share of times). Depending on the mission type, you either respawn without losing progress, or get reset to a pretty fair checkpoint (usually the latest story cue). The weapon system is really well thought out with balancing between different enemy types, and even if your loadout isn't optimal for your current situation... you can just change it, and all other amps (weapon/player modifiers) mid-mission!
That all said, the PC port can be a bit buggy sometimes, especially in the second DLC area (audio is pretty broken there), and initially I had to check through the forums here to find a helpful guide on blocking the steam cloud save as that's completely broken and causes crashes. The lack of multiplayer as opposed to the original (even though that was a bit limited) is also unfortunate. Still a blast to play through though, an absolute must-have to me! If you see it on a sale, just get it already!

Whoever at R* approved this latest update needs to get the hell out of the games industry.
This is the worst enemy spam yet. Coupled with godawful controls, a jet with cannons so crooked, that if you try to use it's crosshair you fly straight into an enemy and die, a mission that should be part of flight school.

Still has a lot of UI/UX and features to work on, but already a really solid SocialVR platform.
Content workflow is a lot more beginner friendly thanks to the CCK's automation tools for advanced toggles, there's a proper, working tagging system for R-18 content (as well as many other filterable options), and the ToS is permissive towards modding, so say hello to better accessibility and jank-free device integrations!
And props! No longer do we need special avatars to have a spontaneous swordfight, and you can bring your own car to races! You can also share your content with specific friends rather than publishing it fully, truly filling all the major gaps it's major competitor has left open for many, many years at this point!
I can't wait to see what the future holds for CVR, from both developers and community!

TL;DR: 10/10. Get it, the hype is justified.

Definitely worth the winning spot for last year's steam awards in terms of story. I'd honestly call it revolutionary in just how everything flows together as one big experience instead of a clear main quest and a bunch of shoddy side stuff, even if you don't focus on side jobs at first. And the choice paths are absolute insanity! Anything you pick can result in such a different experience later on and you really notice just how you chose, without even needing to replay whole chunks of the game.
In terms of glitches, I don't know what it was like at launch, but so far I've only encountered a small bug with a visual effect getting stuck which was fixed easily by just saving and restarting the game, some bumpy collisions here and there, mostly in the badlands, and the probably most yet also least annoying thing, my vehicle ending up in a zone that disables it, so deep I have to recall it a few meters away to get it out.
In terms of framerate, even on the defaults (minus motion blur, please make this default off, my eyes hurt until I threw that out the window) for a 3700X/2070sp rig, which consist mostly of high/ultra at 1080p, I've felt the game was more than playable even when it occasionally dipped to 30 and under in densely populated areas.
Currently on the road to 100% (well, 99%, not sure if I'll go down different character paths just yet as reasoned in the coming last section of my review), which is something I've so far only done with a handful of way old games, so that's gotta say something pretty darn good for the team's work on this game.
Also, I really like how since this game already got an 18+ rating for violence and whatnot, it actually goes all-out on that rating, especially with considerably risky themes such as sexual content. Perfect for some healthy daydreaming about just what the future may be like if we just had that edge on technology for real, and just how big of a virtual... Johnny? That ambiguous enough? you really need to compensate for with your rage on the trigger. Though I will pout at the team for making trans-NPCs, yet not giving us the option to change up V more than the basic details *after* initial character creation with that free-DLC, could've gotten a laugh at R* here.
Anyway, closing up my review:
I'm looking forward to what the big Relic DLC (and whatever else may come around) will offer, perhaps a true ending if certain lines of the credit sequence lyrics are anything to go by? Most likely gonna be playing from start to finish again if so.