Recent reviews by jimbobslimbob

I am shocked that this game has been so poorly received by the PC crowd. It really isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is - and indeed most of the criticism seems to be aimed at micro-transactions and performance/crashing. While these things are far from ideal, it certainly does not warrant the amount of negativity generated by it.

The game once again lets you take control of Adam Jenson and either shoot or sneak your way around in traditional Deus Ex stye. It plays very similar to the previous title (Human Revolution) in all respects. Infact, it is so similar that you will sometimes wonder if you are infact playing a prettier DLC for the previous game.

As with HR, you get the choice of how you want to play the game. Pretty much everything you do in this game can be accomplished in more than one way. Secret tunnels, sneaking, shooting, persuading, exploring and using your arsenal of cool "augs" are all options. I found the "shooting" path in this game to actually be one of the most difficult ways to play - since enemy AI Leeroy at you all at once and you quickly find yourself outnumbered and outmanoeuvred - even with all your cool augs to help. Now, to be fair, Deus Ex has (at least previously) tried to discourage this kind of play in favour of being more tactful, so I cannot really fault it there. It would, however, have been nice to have the option to go Rambo without the AI destroying you in seconds.

After an initial play about with the different styles, I settled into a more tactful, stealthy pacifist style of play. This, I found much easier to play with and so stuck with it for the rest of the game. I must say I came to really enjoy it in the end, after taking the time to invest in certain "must-have" augs.

The story is much more contained than previous games in the series. The entire game also takes place in only one really area "hub", as opposed to the grander style of the other games. This is both a blessing and a curse because on the one hand, it gave them an opportunity to really flesh out and add detail to the game world that IS there, but on the other hand it feels like there is more to this game than there is. The same could be said about the games length. It does feel quite short - and I worry that the DLC-train will be the way they fix this. A real shame, to be honest, since I really did want a little more for my money here. Micro-transactions are something you can simply ignore - to no real detriment to your game. I don't like this idea at all though - and it feels like a big kick in the teeth at milking more money on an already expensive (and small/short) game. I can understand why people are upset about this and hope they don't try this kind of scam again.

It looks gorgeous in most respects but is let down by some shoddy secondary character models and below-par lip-sync. The environment is rendered very well though - and more often than not looks truly wonderful. Music is also worth mentioning here - it is perfect for the game and lends a degree of background "mood" to the game.

As for performance - I had no trouble at all. The game seemed to keep a steady 60FPS in most cases. When it did drop it was not noticeable enough to me to warrant cause for alarm. I did have a few crashes though - which were annoying to say the least. The first one I had was after the tutorial mission, which forces you to watch 5 minutes of un-skipabble cutscenes again because of it. I also had continued issues with the "shooting range" in TF29 headquarters and gave up with it in the end. The crashes were my biggest issue with the game because of the lengthy time it takes to load up the game, watch the unskippable logos and then wait for the save-game to load for what seems like an age.

All-in-all it's a decent and fun entry in the Deus Ex franchise, but it is a little rough around the edges, "samey" and shorter than I had hoped.

Jimbo Rating: 7/10

This review will focus entirely on single-player, because I have no interest in multiplayer (outside of a lacking co-op campaign mode).

A very welcome return to form for Doom. The majority of the game consists of things most old-school Doom players will relish with delight. Lots of monsters, lots of big guns and lots of frantic, wonderful gun-play as you run through levels mowing down progressively harder monsters from hell.

The story is nothing to write home about, but then, it never was the focus of Doom games. I certainly never bought the game for its engrossing storyline, so no loss at all here. The basic premise is to rid Mars of the hellspawn and kill everything in your path as you do so. It's enough - and needs little else to make the game work.

Graphically it looks beautiful and the engine seems to cope with vast amounts of monsters and action at once without causing too much strain on your system. That said, whacking up the sliders to "Ultra" reduced my game to a slideshow. The monster and weapon models are all very well detailed and fit perfectly within the "Doom" aesthetic. Levels are frequently beautifully rendered, it's just a shame that in a game this fast and frantic that you don't really get time to stop and gawk at its magnificence sometimes.

Sound and music are also well represented here. Weapons have a great kick to them. When the action gets tense, the music ramps up and mania ensues.

Gameplay wise, it's a mixed bag. The levels can sometimes be a bit confusing and make you do a lot of running around. This is magnified when you try and find all the special power-up items that are hidden throughout each level. It has some platforming elements, which I am not a big fan of, but luckily they are easy enough and not too frequent as to ruin the overall gameplay. You can double-jump, rocket jump, ledge-climb and fall from great heights. It really harkens back to the good old days of Doom and Quake gameplay - and is just what the franchise needed at this point after the rather lackluster Doom 3. The game usually throws one or two "arenas" at you per level, where big fights with monsters occur. These are great fun. They are effectively little playgrounds where you can just go nuts with your arsenal of ultra-badass weapons. Speaking of weapons - all the classics make an appearance in a very welcome way. This time round you can even mod the weapons to your liking (along with your suit) to customise them to your playstyle. It's a welcome, if somewhat "obvious" addition to the game.

All-in-all it truly is a great game and brought back many fond memories of the originals. Slaughtering monsters hasn't felt this good since Doom 2.

Jimbo Rating: 8/10

This is currently extremely bare-bones, even for an EA game that costs a quid. It's more of a tech demo than an EA game at present. As such, even for the low-price it sells for, I cannot in good conscience give this game a thumbs up.

It looks okay, but there is no game here at all. You select a map and spend 20 minutes protecting a harvester. You are then thrown back to the "base" and have to do it all over again for absolutely no reason.

Do yourself a favour and wait for it to mature before purchasing, or else you may be very disappointed.

Jimbo Rating: 4/10

An Early Access game that actually has stuff to do and is a great amount of fun.

The game is a kind of hybrid of Space Engineers, GRAV and 7 Days To Die. It has planets, moons, asteroid belts and lots of stuff to do and explore on all of those things. It has enemy AI for PvE lovers and special PvP systems for those that love that as well. It's a great game to play co-op too, with plenty of things to keep you occupied.

The survival mode features things such as a food and oxygen system, farming, building, mining, exploring and scavenging. Planets have randomly generated POI's to explore that include things such as crashed ships, scary abandoned mines (you will see why they were abandoned :-)), space ports and all other kinds of cool stuff. Enemy natives, drones and aliens are also thrown into the mix (something severly lacking from games such as Space Engineers).

Creative mode allows you free reign over everything you create and gives you unlimited resources to do so. The brilliant thing here is that you can design, create and test something there and then create a blueprint of it to bring into a multiplayer/survival game.

The building mechanics are superb - you can create some wonderful things - just see the workshop for this game to give you an idea. Bases, small ships, hover ships and capital ships are all buildable. It also features a brilliant blueprint system, whereby you can easily save and upload your creations for future use and to share with others.

It has multiplayer (as mentioned above), with dedicated servers which are a snap to set up. There seems to be a fairly large online presence for it too (although I host a private server). Single player works well too, if you are so inclined.

Simply put, this could well be my favourite early access game. It's a true joy to play, even in its early state. The developers also seem to be on the ball with frequent updates - and actually communicate with their community well (unlike other EA games). So, if you are a fan of the survival genre, sci-fi and building things - this may very well be "just the ticket".

Jimbo Rating: 9/10

A superb 2D platformer that oozes humour and references pretty much every single action movie ever made.

Graphically it looks beautiful for what it attempts to emulate (the 8/16-bit era) and the controls and movement are silky smooth and work wonderfully. It also features local co-op and a built in level editor which is also an amazing amount of fun.

The gameplay consists of running through various zones rescuing your comrades and shooting the bad-guys. "Get to the choppa!" It has destructible terrain, tons of playable characters (each with their own distinct abilities and weapons), bonkers bosses and 'MERICA to the extreme.

Truly a joy to play and I would recommend to anyone interested in it.

Jimbo Rating: 8/10

A classic in all regards. Not an easy game - but that just adds to its charm. It knows what it does well and plays to those strengths. It does look a little dated, but the gameplay is still top-notch.

I still have my boxed copy of this game - and all the texture and sound mods I made for it back then. I dread to think of the amount of hours I lost in this one back in the day. This Steam "restoration" brings it all back and makes it playable again.

Aliens are quick and deadly (as they should be), Predators are powerhouses and marines just try to survive. Scary, tense, difficult and simply great fun. The later AvP games (and Colonial Marines) simply couldn't capture the atmosphere that this game provided.

Jimbo Rating: 9/10

Had the boxed game when it first came out and played it to death (along with all the others in the JK series).

The game improves on JO in almost every respect and focuses more on lightsaber combat than its predecessor with great result. It's simply a brilliant game (even by today's standards).

Great memorable levels, great combat and just great fun. I wish we got Star Wars games like this these days. It beats Force Unleashed at every single thing it does.

Jimbo Rating: 9/10

It's not perfect, but it certainly does not warrant the amount of negativity it seems to be generating. The main issue I see is that it tries to be too much - something for everyone. A hybrid game, of sorts. In doing this, it ends up being simply too average at each of it's mechanics. It's kind of an MMO, but lacking features; it's kind of an RPG, but lacking depth; it's kind of a tactical 3rd person shooter, but lacking realism. However, as a whole the game simply works... surprisingly well I might add.

Anyway, let's break it down:

The Bad
- Still a bit buggy (getting stuck in objects, disconnecting, falling through levels).
- Enemies don't need to be far above your level to make them severe bullet sponges. This leads to...
- Grouping issues, since characters more than 3 levels above/below cause severe balancing issues.
- Skills are unlocked by doing side-missions instead of levelling up. This leads to...
- ...if you spend a while doing missions in a block (without going back to the safe house), you feel like you are getting nowhere until you do finally get back and suddenly unlock tons and tons of skills all at once.
- The loot is very "meh". Other than increasing damage/dps/armour numbers, nothing really makes you too thrilled with getting new loot. It is also replaced very quickly as you level.
- No incentive to start another character - every one is EXACTLY the same and there is no permanent skills/classes to "shake it up".
- It's repetitive. 1-30 is fun, but end-game will not be for everyone. To be fair, I am never a fan of these end-game MMO-ey things anyway... it's the journey there that I prefer and will not be playing the endless grinding raids etc. If you do not plan on doing this then this may not be so much of a "con".

The Good
- Combat is very enjoyable. It is fluid, tactical and the cover mechanics are spot on.
- Great fun co-op with a group of friends.
- Ability to respec whenever you wish.
- It looks gorgeous and runs surprisingly smoothly too.
- Easy to pick up and play.
- Lot's to do and a large open world to explore.
- 4 Character slots so that you can have several different leveled characters in play.
- Plenty of skills (and mods for them), talents and perks to choose from.

So, in summary, it's a flawed, but very enjoyable game. Worthy of a thumbs up and certainly not deserving of all the negativity. With any luck, patches and DLC may fix some of the issues and add some required features.

Jimbo Rating: 7/10

The Steam controller is a very solid and well thought-out controller that attempts to "bridge the gap" between the controller and the mouse and keyboard. It succeeds (somewhat) in this regard - but is still not quite as good as a mouse and keyboard in most respects.

It's main selling point is the trackpads - of which it has two (one each side). These function in a similar way to how most older laptop mouse-pads act - meaning more precise and quick movements can be made when compared to an analogue stick (the controller still has a single analogue stick on the left of the device). It takes a bit of getting used to - but when you do, you will find the controllers significantly better to use than (for instance) a 360 controller, which I was using previously. The 4 main buttons are located lower than a 360 pad, but function in the same way. It also boasts the usual 4 trigger buttons + 2 additional ones on the underside of the pad (which are really handy).

The addition of downloadable pre-made controller configurations and the ability to alter them to your heart's content really seals the deal. Steam have done a really solid job of integrating the pad with the UI (although it is Big Picture mode only) and games. Even games that do not support controllers can be configured to use the Steam Controller - in a similar way that programs like Pinnacle Game Profiler and xPadder do.

All-in-all, it's a great controller - and a step in the right direction for Steam (and controllers as a whole).

Jimbo Rating: 9/10

Had this gadget for over 2 months now, so thought it was worth reviewing.

The Steam Link is most useful when:
a) you do not want to move your PC between rooms in order to play elsewhere in your house;
b) you do not want to deal with a (potentially) long HDMI cable (and mouse/keyboard/controller cable) to your PC;
c) you have your gaming PC far away from another location that you sometimes wish to play games.

The Link is a brilliant little box that allows you to stream games from any PC in your network. It has 3 USB ports and works with controllers and/or a mouse and keyboard. It can be used over WiFi or Ethernet (Ethernet is recommended to reduce lag).

Upon turning on, it will see any computers on your LAN that are currently running Steam. From there you select the PC you wish to stream from and it works. Simple as that. You can even stream the desktop (by exiting Big Picture mode) and use the PC as if you were sitting at it normally.

I have found absolutely no issues with lag or input lag while using it so far - although I do have a decent router and quality cabling in my home. Those users relying on WiFi may encounter issues if their network is not up to scratch. Games just work - and surprisingly well too. I have found myself using it more and more.

Jimbo Rating: 9/10