Recent reviews by JimGrimm

Hearing SHODAN call me an insect again did put a smile on my face.

System Shock 2 is a game I hold in high regard, and I would say this one is pretty high up there. I typically won't even touch remakes of old games, so I think this one is really special.

I never bothered to post a review for this game in all these years, but it looked like today was the right time for it.

It's truly a shame to see this game in such a dilapidated state for so long.

There are some aspects of Old School that I dislike:
- It's an endless grind, and a lot of skills are so repetitive that I need to watch TV while I'm playing to entertain myself.
- There is very little "Multiplayer Content" aside from some minigames and endgame content. Most of the time it's practically a singleplayer game.
- Other players can be a hindrance as they can kill enemies you're trying to fight and expend resources like ores which drive you to find the least populated server and areas to grind at (Ironic, for an MMO).
- The default interface was great when I played in my Windows XP Internet Explorer browser, but I now find it pretty unintuitive, and it causes many players(including myself) to play on alternative launchers with better UX capabilities.

It seems like I'd think this is a terrible game, but something about it is a lot fun to me, and I think it boils down to: it's simple to play, fun to learn, but difficult (and even down right tedious) to master. Sometimes I'll take a break for a few weeks or months, but eventually jump back into it. I think that says a lot about the staying power of the game and, for what it's worth, it's the only MMORPG that I've ever really liked.

After over a decade of development, Sven Co-op launches on steam with a generous amount of well developed maps and fun gameplay. I only hope that we get regular updates that add more maps to keep the game alive. My favorite so far was "Danger of Collaps" or sc_doc. It offered action as well as puzzle solving which is sadly absent from most others. You'll find a variety of maps/gamemodes similar to that of Left 4 Dead. Not really a problem but It's much more satisfying to get on a server and work as a team to solve puzzles, you know, use your mind a little bit. Again I haven't played all the maps but the running theme is kill mindless zombies/aliens/soliders until you reach the next room. One downside is the lack of official servers. I know they're a modding group and don't focus on servers but the only "official ones" I found were the "Nightfire source" servers which are probably not related to Sven and I found them dreadfully laggy. I don't want to see this game one day have one or 2 servers up like some other source mods. I know the devs are VERY devoted but it's such a relief to be able to play this game with people who may have never downloaded the mod before.

Overall: Really fun and free to play. Only improvement i could think of is some official servers of some kind.

More than half the game is walking around empty roads looking for your friend only to be killed by someone and start all over. Maybe if there was an easier way to meet up with your friend this game could be fun but as is, it bores the hell out of me. Zombies aren't a threat either. You have to be right in front of them for them to attack you and could be outrun with no problem. There's 1 map and pretty much the same stuff every time. I will only play this game if my friend and I have cooldown on CSGO.

A sequel to the old American McGee's Alice from way back in 2000. You don't need to play the first game really but it adds to the whole story and atmosphere of this game. For those who haven't played the original you'll have to buy it online or on a console since it is not on steam. The controls are OK. The camera seems a bit too sensative and doesn't move enough at the same time. It's hard to explain but while playing the Mad Hatter level you'll see what I mean. Jumping and fighting from the original have been improved. You can jump 3 times and glide now. There is a lock on system but you use caps lock. Not too bad but it gets annoying trying to press caps lock because not many other games use that button. The design of the areas are all designed very beautifully and uniquely. It doesn't feel like they swaped a steampunk pallet for a forest pallet. The levels and enemies seem to fit each of their environments and every level seems different. The creepy atmosphere from the original travels well over to this game. I would reccomend this even if you haven't played the original.

Revisit

The game as a concept is quite ambitious allowing you to create your own unique (or loosely inspired by) hero and place them into the DC Universe home to some of the most famous heroes and villains. Having executed that idea it is quite fun... for a while. The main "campaign" or whatever you'd like to call it is everything I could have asked for from a DC mmo experience. It is a surprisingly fufilling experience which I would guess is an 80+ hours depending how many friends you have to help. In that aspect it is one of the best F2P games you can get. The story alone is longer than some P2P games and you have multiple storylines and endgame raids etc.

Personally I had no desire to play the Superman or Wonder Woman campaigns after spending so much time on one character. It would be a great option to let you play through all of them on one character for more playtime. The endgame wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped. I'm not a big mmorpg player but what I've played is overly "grindy" playing scenarios from levels you beat over and over til you get enough points to do the same thing on a higher difficulty. I have memories of playing Runescape and all the quests you could do on your own before getting into the more involved part of the game.

I don't have friends who play and it's impossible to make any from the broken chat and the lack of easily accessible microphone chat. The chat is flooded by ways to get millions of in game cash for $12 and people looking for groups of players that I'm not a high enough level to join. Whenever I tried to use the chat there isn't a global setting I could find, only a long range local chat.

Perhaps if there was an easier way to get gear without grinding my braincells away I could enjoy it a bit more. As is, there's a solid story mode and some fun gameplay with some very fluid combat. I remember when I used to play runescape or WoW the combat was just a stiff animation. In this game it feels like you really fight the enemy instead of watch a red damage number attack your enemy.

Game feels unfinished. Aliens go straight for you most of the time and completely ignores your AI "partners". I put that in quotes because O' Neal just gets in your way and barely kills aliens or provide support. He has a smart gun with unlimited ammo and I never see him help me out when I'm being swarmed. The story makes no sense as well. Fans of the franchise like myself will understand the characters but players trying to get into the series will just be confused. They place locations, characters, and weapons for no reason. They bring back Bishop from the movie who is a "different" one. This makes sense in a way because he is a synthetic person but they relly just put him in to relate the game to the movie.

They bring back a marine from the movie which makes no sense to the storyline of Aliens. I won't say for spoilers in case anyone cares about spoilers from this game. The Sulaco apparantly had an auto pilot because it is back in this game. I guess when it landed over Fury 161 it got bored of waiting for Ripley and then flew off on its own. In other words they brought it back because it was in the movie. Through the whole game I didn't really feel like a Colonial Marine. In the movie they were all excited and cocky until the Aliens came and killed more than half of the squad in less than 10 minutes. In the game all the Colonial Marines felt like regular soldiers from Call of Duty. The only threat the Aliens have is that they all gang up on you and no one helps. Multiplayer is just broken. You have to add people to play which defeats the purpose of playing online. This game is just bad and boring. I beat it to get some space on my computer and it just feels like a chore. Don't buy this unless you're a big fan of the Alien movies and want to see what this game does wrong.