Recent reviews by jimbobslimbob

Camera that resets position after every area transition: check
Hotbars that don't stay where I put them: check
A completely unusable (worse than the original) WASD "character mode" option: check
Bear-bones improvements to the game: check
Bugs from original: check
No improvements to character or inventory screens: check
No improvements to portraits: check
A somehow worse menu system than the original: check

...yeah this is a pretty dire show. The absolute bear minimum was done here - and in all the wrong places. At least Beamdog understood their game and what required fixing. Aspyr have absolutely no clue what they are doing.

Just buy the original and mod it to fix all the above, problem solved. And this is coming from a massive NWN 2 fan that's played since launch and has thousands of hours in it. Avoid it.

Jimbo Rating: 4/10

Jedi Power Battles is a port of the Dreamcast version of the original game from the early 00's. It's not so much as a remaster (and more like a re-release), since the game is almost completely unchanged from its initial release, bar things like high resolution and widescreen support and some unlocked characters. All the frustration, bugs and jank of the original are still here - for better or worse.

It supports high resolution and widescreen gameplay and looks fairly decent for a game over 20 years old. It seems textures have seen a slight uplift - probably via some form of AI upscaling. HUD elements and menus have also been re-done and look pretty good. The limited number of cutscenes have also seen an upscale.

Sound is exactly as it was in the release version. Although the effects are pretty good for the most part, they are of noticeably low quality and bugs like repeating and missing sounds are still present. Not much else to say here.

Anyone familiar with the old version will notice immediately that this is exactly the same. No tweaks or improvements have been made, bar a "modern" controller setup and auto-targeting nearest enemies. If you found the old game annoying, frustrating and unwieldy, do not come into this expecting anything else. This aside, it's still a great fun beat-em-up with platforming and always felt like a precursor to the PS2's Episode 3 game to me.

You get a multitude of characters to play through the game with and upgrade abilities. They included additional characters that were previously locked behind achievements and VS mode for the main game also, although I found none of them worth your time. For me, I wanted new Jedi or Sith characters, not generic NPC's as controllable characters. An absolute bare-minimum effort was made for this re-release.

Plenty of bugs also exist still. Some I came across include: If you step on the wrong fan in Coruscant, your character flies off screen and a re-restart of the entire level is required. On the swamps of Naboo I got pushed through the floor by the end boss.

Frustrations that existed before are also still here - like on level 4 if the queen dies you do not restart at the last check-point, but have to do the entire level again. Things like this really do not need to be here and could have surly been improved upon, given in the instance I mention here, this is at the end of the level and it's a real slog to go through it all again.

I really wished a little more was done with this re-release - including fixing some bugs, providing the ability to change key-binds/controller buttons and allowing run to be bound to a button. This aside, it's a PC port of a classic from my childhood so I enjoyed my time in it. Your mileage may vary.

This game surprised me. I went in not expecting much and came out absolutely loving my time in it.

Graphics and Sound
It Belongs In A Museum!
Absolutely beautiful. Runs well, lighting is gorgeous and character models look awesome. Nothing bad at all to say here. The id-tech engine really pulls its weight here and proves just how well they make game engines. The levels all look amazing and RTX shines. 'Nuff said.

Sound is also top-notch, from the crack of Indy's whip to the thud behind punches. Everything feels like it belongs and is perhaps one of the underappreciated marvels of the game - along with a pitch-perfect soundtrack that feels inline with the movies.

Gameplay
I Don't Know. I'm Making This Up As I Go.
Gameplay revolves around exploration, combat and stealth. Stealth is mostly optional and half the fun in-game was going in silently, only for things to turn sour where improvised fights then come in to play. Combat is frantic and fun, involving fist fighting, melee and guns. Guns are to be used sparingly, however, since firing alerts everyone around you. Using a combination of stealth melee take-downs, wip-cracking weapons from enemies hands and melee/hand-to-hand combat is pure joy and encourages innovation. It's nothing too complex but "just works" and feels very satisfying. Stealth is a but lack-lustre, but that actually works in the games favour as Indy just uses everything available to him to succeed.

Puzzles are a large part of the game as well, but tread the line very well against being obtuse. Luckily they are all fun to do and not too challenging as to make them annoying. They are thankfully a welcome addition to the game and push the game further into fun.

Story
You Call This Archaeology?
Superb. Better than any of the "new" films after the Last Crusade. The game is set in-between the 1st and 3rd films and features some great new and re-occurring characters. The voice acting and mo-cap is absolutely top notch. I would be more than happy to have this being a proper 4th film. The villan is also really well voiced and written. Some of the new side characters are also fully realised - with Gina in particular being a highlight - and functions as Indy's side-kick throughout most of the adventure.

Jimbo Summary: 8/10 - Really good Indy-sim and fun overall game with a great story, graphics and characters. Anyone who likes Indiana Jones, add a point and make it a 9/10.

Summary / TLDR
Brilliant in almost everything it does. A true gem and a game that will be remembered for pushing boundaries in everything it does. Larian has a passion and it shows. We need more of this in games today – something that seems to have been lost of late. Larian has a real passion and it shows.

Bottom line – I would recommend this game to everyone. It’s a masterpiece.

Graphics
For a top-down, isometric game, the graphics are surprisingly good. You can zoom right into the thick of it and everything looks amazing. The game world is vivid, densely packed and looks amazing. There’s detail everywhere and the levels offer a surprising amount of immersion.

Gameplay
Probably one of the best interpretations of the D&D rule-set every committed to video game form. It gives the player freedom of choice in everything they do and offers massive replay value thanks to an impressive array of choices, classes, abilities and spells. The combat is turn-based and keeps things immersive, tactical and fun. The conversation options open up depending on your class and abilities and dice rolls for certain choices keep things interesting. Cutscenes and animation are all top-notch.

Story
Really good. It keeps you hooked from the moment you start the game right until the end. Thanks to multiple endings the game world responds to what you have done throughout. Voice acting is top-notch and it offers a wealth of really interesting characters – along with meaningful party members that are all written very well. There’s conflict, friendship and love and it’s up to you how tor respond.

Jimbo Rating: 10/10 – Absolutely astonishing in every way. Recommended to everyone.

No

Summary / TLDR - “Blandfield”
This game has massive issues. However, there is a good game hidden underneath all the crap. I would honestly wait for the price to drop before trying. It's bland, repetitive, grindy and pretty boring. It could have been so much there - and the foundation is there, it just never materialises. Moment to moment game-play has highs and lows, but boy do the lows stick with you.

Graphics
It looks "okay". The general look is serviceable. It has nice environments indoors, however the external areas are lacking. You can tell when prefabbed areas and indoor areas have been made by hand because they far surpass a lot of the boring, generic outside areas.

NPC's unfortunately look like they did back in Oblivion - the same robotic animations and uncanny valley NPC's that we've grown accustomed to in every Bethesda game. It reaks of laziness and they really need to work on this on future games as the engine has had its day and it needs modernising.

It also features a heavy amount of loading screens and a general lack of flow between areas. There is also this weird coloured overlay added everywhere that ruins colours and brightness across the board. Everything is constantly hazy and blacks are never black. Why this was added is beyond me - it looks horrible - why not just give us the option to turn off this "feature"?

On the flip-side, the ships look awesome and textures are pretty good.

Performance is pretty poor given what is on show - and no amount of "this is a next gen game" will deter from the fact that the engine is poorly optimised and well past its sell-by date.

Gameplay
Starfield gameplay can be best described as "mixed". It is pretty mediocre across the board and nothing really shines. Gun-play is probably the best part of the game, but even that is "minimum viable product" and doesn't shine in any particular area.

Flying ships is cool - it's just there is nothing fun to do. Sure you have ship battles - but they play out just like Freelancer did - better - and that was released 20 years ago. You are pretty much limited to orbiting a planet, where an encounter may happen, then you select a landing point, see a loading screen and bam - you have landed. It feels very tacked on and I wish something more was done here.

The ship builder is pretty good and I had fun creating ships, there just isn't much to do with them - they are all glorified cargo ship to store all your stuff on and little more.

Story
The main story is one huge repetitive fetch-quest with walking, fast travelling to a location, more walking and then on to the next. It lacks imagination and is pretty terrible. Add to this the need to go through the god-awful lock-picking game in pretty much every room you enter and you have a recipe for time-wasting, monotonous boredom for the majority of your time.

The side-quests are better, but nothing really stands-out. It's all very forgettable, with bland characters, mediocre voice acting and NPC's that you really won't remember for anything other than bugging out whenever physics comes in to play.

Jimbo Rating: 5/10 - Buy at your own risk.

In a nutshell: It's WWZ with Aliens.

Massive Alien franchise lover, so this was instantly on my motion tracker. After putting in a fair few hours I found myself warming to it as a whole. It may lack the more subtle tension and tactics of what I hoped for (I was hoping for door welding, hacking and tactful, slower gameplay like Alien Swarm) but it does what it does well.

Yo! Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen!
At its core, it's a horde-based shooter with 4 campaigns, consisting of 3 20-minute levels each and a horde mode (unlocked on completion). It has a range of difficulty options, but later ones suffer from bullet-sponge enemies to increase the challenge instead of - you know - ANYTHING else.

At launch, it has 5 classes (another coming the day of writing this for the free season one content), which offers different skills, weapons and play-styles. It features an unlockable skills system, whereby you level your character up to level 8, gradually getting access to more and better skills. This allows you to customise your character however you like. Certain class skills are not limited by class - and are indeed universally usable on all characters - which offers a surprising amount of different mixes to try out.

It also features consumable items like sentries, mines and electric grids, which can be bought using mission funds. These help on the higher difficulties when facing the swarms dotted throughout the levels. It features a large amount of weapons - which they themselves can be leveled up and modded with up to 3 attachments - further customising your marine to your liking. Weapons are broken into the handgun, CQW, rifle and heavy category. Each class has access to two of these categories - usually ones that tie into their preferred playstyle.

Look into my eye
Graphically, it looks lovely. Nothing to complain about there. Sound and music are also on point. Environments are well detailed and interesting. Each campaign offers a different scenario to play in, ranging from a space station to ancient ruins. Environments take cues from pretty much all the films (even the newer Prometheus) and the game contains lore from each as well. This offers a surprising amount of variety.

We're on the express elevator to hell, goin' down!
The main negatives at the time of writing are as follows: Tedious higher difficulties, with bullet-sponge mechanics. The matchmaking system is a mess. Finding games at present with randoms is a frustrating experience. There is also no text or voice chat in-game, making communication with teammates more difficult that in should be. There are a few teething bugs like dailies not refreshing and skins not unlocking as well. Other than this, the game suffers by not having an "AI director" like L4D. While some parts of levels are different each time you play, everything is scripted, so it's just the game choosing one over another. Enemies spawn in the exact same places. It would have been nice to have more random spawns here to keep things interesting on subsequent play-thoughts.

We’re in the pipe. Five by five.
Overall, it's a solid, if a little underwhelming horde shooter with frantic gameplay, set in the Aliens universe.

Jimbo Rating: 8/10

Terraria is a 2D RPG with building and crafting elements and some limited exploration. The primary goal of the game is to improve your gear and take on progressively difficult bosses. Along the way you will have to manage NPC's housing and towns, build structures for defence, utility and housing, mine ore and continue to craft better armours, weapons and equipment to face these escalating challenges. You will also have to deal with cleansing (or keeping at bay) corruption/crimson (depending on your generated world), which is an evil biome that spreads throughout your world. Later on you will contend with additional biomes and the challenges they bring.

Graphically it has a simple, yet pleasing aesthetic, reminiscent of "old-school" 16-bit platformers. It's beautiful in its own way and has the advantage of being able to run on pretty much anything. Sound and music are equally as fitting - and the whole package fits really well together.

The game also has a sandbox element to it, where you can just ignore objectives and build, explore or do whatever you want. Your character is independent of a world and can freely move between them, meaning you can create a world for building magnificent structures only if that's what you want, and have another focused towards completion. Worlds are randomly generated based on a seed with a few options including difficulty and world size, along with the choice of crimson or corruption, which are different versions of the evil biome that spawn different monsters, items and bosses.

There are 4 different classes that you will eventually be swayed to move into, including melee, ranged, magic or summoning. Each of these offer very different playstyles, powers and weapons. There should be something here for everyone - and hybrid classes are possible should you wish. There is no level up or experience system. Your character progresses by getting better equipment. This also means you can farm equipment for all classes and switch between them when you wish.

It features multiplayer - both with dedicated servers and drop-in-out play via Steam. It is great fun to play with friends, where you can team up to take on challenges or just let your creativity free and make the fun for yourself.

There is a lot to see and do here, giving it immense replay value and the gameplay loop is addictive and fun. Anyone interested in RPG's, sandboxes, crafting and building should give it a go as it may surprise you with just how well made the game is.

Jimbo Rating: 9/10

Squadrons is a Star Wars game where you get to pilot 8 ships (4 from each faction) in space, fighting other ships. Anyone who has played X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, Rogue Squadron or similar games should get an idea as to what to expect.

It looks brilliant. In or out of VR (I have tried both). In VR it's probably the closest thing you will get to feel like flying an X-Wing and is great fun. The mechanics also offer enough to ensure that flying is more than just pointing your ship in the right direction and going pew pew. It has a power management system to shunt power to/from weapons, shields and weapons - each offering certain advantages in combat. You will find yourself switching between them often to take advantage of the benefits in certain situations. You also have access to several additional weapons and gadgets, which differ depending on the ship you fly and the ability to swap out this equipment to tailor your ship to a certain playstyle or mission.

Unfortunately, this game is far from perfect. The single player is extremely short and not very memorable. The maps also don't offer any atmospheric flight near or on planets and are generally quite lacklustre - which is a great shame. The mouse and keyboard controls are also awful - almost to the point of not being playable. You are much better off using a joypad or joystick. The multiplayer lacks content - maps and game modes. There is no objective-based co-op mode, which is a real shame for players like myself who find PvP too high a skill point to get involved with. It also means the multiplayer is quite boring and I don't see much longevity there either. The release price point is a little high for what the game boils down to.

A flawed, content dry game that could have done with more development time. A mouse and keyboard control system that will frustrate the hell out of you. Fun to be had in short doses and is great to experience in VR, but lacks any real substance to keep you around for long past the honeymoon phase. A bit of a disappointment, but not a "bad" game by any means.

Jimbo Rating: 5/10 - I would rate this neutral if I could.

A game that I would probably never have looked twice at, if not for recommendations from friends that had already played it. Don't make the same mistake I did - the reviews do reflect just how great the game is!

Gameplay consists of being dropped into a world that is beautiful and crazy. It's slick FPS shooter with roguelike roots that is a blast to play both single player and with up to 4 friends. A multitude of classes, playstyles, abilities and items will make every playthough different and keeps things fresh and fun every time you play. It's fast-paced and unrelenting, but rewards smart decisions, exploration and PEW PEW.

It has a novel graphical look that is surprisingly good and great music alongside it. Things can get very chaotic as you advance through the levels, yet the game always seems to maintain a nice balance and not go over the top to a point where it's a lightshow.

There are plenty of unlockables - in the form of abilities, characters and artefacts. Some harder to figure out than others. Exploration is key here. As you begin to understand the systems in play, you can start to work out a character build that fits the way you play - and luckily there is plenty to chose from. Fancy a bow and arrow huntress with seeking arrows? Got you covered. Fancy a mercenary with a lazer sword that dices enemies at close range? They got you covered. They have engineers, gunners, aliens, robots and more. Sufficed to say, you will find more than one way of playing - and all of them are fun. Where it shines, however, is multiplayer - where teamwork comes together to form a really slick and enjoyable game to play.

Jimbo Rating: 9/10