Recent reviews by King Haddock

I mean, it's Red Dead Redemption 2. You know about this game. You know about its unending high praise. You wouldn't be here if you hadn't heard about it.

That's why I came, and frankly, even having heard its heaps of praise, I STILL ended up astounded, over and over and over and over, at its artistry. I don't like speaking in adjulation, emotionality, or hyperbole, so understand I mean these words I say: It is one of the greatest gaming experiences I've ever had. It's one of the greatest gaming experiences I'll have in my life. It's one of the only games I've bought full price, and it would still have been worth double the price I paid.

If for some reason you still need more information, RDR2 has:

- a fantastic, long story with nuanced characters and an ending that sticks with you, sticks on your mind several days after completing those missions.
- tons of optional side missions. and enormous, refreshing mission variety!
- beautifully motion captured animation that show the intricacies of character motion and emotion.
- an ENORMOUS world map. it's beautiful, it's got variety, it's got depth, it's got anything and everything you could want. I'm not even an open world sort of person, I usually can't get into it, and this open world was so engaging and life-like that I could spend days wandering about without touching missions. there are endless things to do and discover. you can spend hundreds of hours in the game and still keep discovering new things about the world.
- so much attention to detail it's flabbergasting and breathtaking. need I make the obligatory "horse balls change size based on weather" joke? (it's true though)
- replay value. you'll certainly notice different things about the story the second time through. plus, multiple game endings

I played about 187 hours before I reached the Epilogue my first time, and I could've played even longer without feeling like I was drawing out the gameplay.

There are a few constructive criticisms I could make towards the game, though all are minor and none decrease my game enjoyment. Thoughts include:

- some unintuitive controls choices (and some people may remark upon controls complexity)
- ex: buffoons like me who don't realize that dropping a gun to pick up a new one won't mean you permanently lose that dropped gun in your armory
- WHY DID YOU SET UP THE HORSE STABLES LIKE THAT?????
- it's semi-cumbersome to get optimized visuals + smooth FPS even with my screaming PC (or maybe don't constantly readjust the settings for experimentation like I did)
- Save Game system isn't perfect if you want to have multiple people or simultaneous playthroughs of the game
- I am no expert on the Red Dead Online drama but there's - there's stuff there, according to what I've seen in fandom conversation circles

And
- maybe pro/con depending on your game style: there's SO MUCH to do, and some difficult tasks to do, that 100%ing this game will take you an eon and a half. I take it as a plus, but it also means I'll never see some things myself because I doubt I'll ever do 'em

I haven't played any other Red Dead titles yet. And I NEVER play things out of chronological order! But this one, as my compadres told me, is fine. While some RDR1 Easter Eggs, references, and emotional moments (like the Epilogue) will be lost upon people like me, the storytelling is its own arc and just as engaging coming in fresh with RDR2. It'll be just as fun - me, without RDR1 background knowledge, in fact had some plot twists I wouldn't expect that thus hit harder! [as RDR2 is a prequel]

Admittedly, I'm someone who's easier to impress because I have lower thresholds of enjoyment than some folks (I can find fun in mediocre things), because I don't play every AAA game out there, and because grew up with late 90s / early 2000s potato graphics of non-Triple A titles (so I'm more likely to be impressed with graphics). Nevertheless, I still stand by the words I've said about this game. A masterpiece.

Hello in the childhood! Of all the games I played growing up, this is the one I'd missed the most.

To my delight: it's just as fun to play when you're 26 years old as when you're 6!

Once again I'm speeding through the tracks - through rainforest planets and floating platforms, asteroid prisons and spice mines, frozen worlds and aquatic landscapes and - of course - the infamous Tatooine with its Boonta Classic. Podracers speed delightfully fast, and when the NPCs start to get on my nerves, I've got the helpful "Insults" button to scream something back at them in game.

Race tracks contain some repeated visual and layout elements, but nothing feels banally repetitive. Even the small chunks of tracks that are "copy-pasted" from one race to another feel fine - because each race in the same planet/zone is a notable bump up in difficulty from the last, and is definitely unique enough to make each race a thrill. Race tracks also contain a wide variety of challenges and obstacles to overcome. I'm whirling through zero gravity chambers, dodging past closing doors, bracing myself through earthquakes, sliding over ice, flying over jumps, cringing through ridiculously tight turns, squeezing past obstacles clogging the road, slamming into stalactites, maneuvering into secret shortcuts, and cursing to myself when a Tusken raider shoots my engine.

Every track is full of life and fun.

Twenty year old graphics aside, I have to say: Star Wars: Episode I Racer has aged astonishingly well. I'm impressed? Controls are enjoyably responsive, button actions are all the ones you'd want (repair, brakes, tilt, etc.), every podracer has a unique "feel," and game design takes almost everything you'd need into good account. The visual display is informative and gives you everything you need, with a helpful amount of customization. For instance, changing between maps can help you anticipate different forks in the road, or see how far ahead or behind racers are with a flag visual. How fast you're going, when you can boost speed, how poorly your engines are faring, are all displayed on screen with good informative design.

For extra gameplay challenges, the game allows you to horizontally mirror every race, change the number of laps between 1-5; change the number of AI racers from 1-12; choose whether the AI races slow, average, or fast; alternate between several first and third person views; compete for fastest lap and full race records; and change winning stakes from a fair distribution of money to "Winner Takes All." Multiplayer allows you to compete with your friends (assuming they're still your friends after they smash your pod into a wall). The only thing I feel obviously lacking is an Easy, Medium, Hard setting on the Tournament mode, though at least the game does a good job making each race and tournament progressively harder, and the other Single Player mode gives you the different AI speeds to control difficulty.

I'm not someone who plays many racing games, and I did play this game for countless hours as a child, so my perspective of how "hard" this is will be skewed. I'll try to assess how I feel about it regardless. There will be a learning curve and that can make the first time through some races a little challenging. I would say it isn't hard for the first half of the game, and then the second half can provide a little (though not SIGNIFICANT) challenge. It's more than possible (and I would recommend you doing so!) to pass the entire game without upgrades. Frankly the no-upgrade-until-you're-done playstyle is the only way I experience the game anymore.

I do want to give the warning that Steam's version of the game has bugs, glitches, and problems. I've been able to complete the game with no difficulty, and most of the time, I'm not running into glitches. HOWEVER. There's enough issues to be very noticeable. You WILL get glitches. Despite using an optimal machine, in the first five hours of playing, I have run into:

- Cutscene video and audio not matching; the audio lags behind and there can be minor visual jerkiness.
- Audio stuttering during the opening cutscene.
- The game occasionally crashing on me. This includes the first time I finished the Boonta Classic (game didn't save progress and I had to redo it), when I tried to select Multiplayer, and one time when I exited out of the game window and came back to it.
- When I earned Sebulba's pod, half of him was white.
- The pictures of the characters (during the final race rankings) turning bright white.
- On the race selection menu, all the buttons for the possible races turning white.
- Some weird display capturing issues (OBS/Streamlabs) when you try to record or stream the game.

So please bear that in mind before purchasing! The Steam version of Episode I Racer isn't perfect and I am sad about that bit. However, I'd say it still IS a great way to gain access to the PC version on the modern system.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is Deponia at its finest.

See. I went into Doomsday with great trepidation. I didn't know if I would like it... to the point I wasn't even sure if I wanted to play it at all. (btw I'm assuming people who are reading this review have played through Goodbye Deponia).

When I heard about the fourth game, I thought that Doomsday was a CONCERNING idea... would Daedalic be throwing away what should have been the end of a story for more money?

I love the trilogy: its characters, its art, its music, its humor, its world, its creativity, its absurdity, its story. And... I especially adore the ending. Yes, many other fans got furious, but for me, it was the perfect way to end the story. It's heavily foreshadowed, start to end, through the trilogy. It's been set up with intention the entire time. It stuck with me, and I had to think about it for several days. The fact that Deponia Doomsday, at its core, seemed to be a story that would **retcon the ending**... looked to me like a way of erasing the ENTIRE HEART AND POINT of the trilogy's storytelling.

I needn't have worried.

Needn't have worried at all.

The people who BEST knew about the importance of Goodbye Deponia's ending were the creators, and BOY did they hammer that hard into Doomsday.

See, while I had accepted the end of the third game, many fans couldn't or wouldn't accept the end... and the entire point of Doomsday is to tell the message "the ending is the right one." It might have a little bit of a retcon spin, but... Instead of erasing the potency of the third game's end, Doomsday AMPLIFIES its power. The most cry-able moments are all in here. Doomsday isn't about erasing the third game - on the contrary, it's about supporting it. I can't look at the third game's end the same way because of Doomsday, that's true, and I have a few mixed feelings about that, but I do NOT have mixed feelings about the fact Doomsday (mostly) held its ground on what the trilogy intended.

It does so by giving the most emotional heart Deponia has ever had. Deponia Doomsday is a game with all the humor and laughs you'd expect of any Deponia game. It is a game with all the ridiculous shenanigans and randomness you'd expect of any Deponia game. It is a game with the puzzles, and art, and animation, that you'd expect of any Deponia game. If you've played through the trilogy, you'll get the same sort of quality in Doomsday, there's nothing new to say there. But with Doomsday, it also comes the most emotionally resonant message that Deponia has ever offered: it's a story about the five stages of grief, and a story about the power of hope.

From start to end, Doomsday focuses on hope. We begin by seeing a graffiti message "no hope." Character conversations, interactions, locations, choices... continue to explore the idea of what hope in the future is, what its power is, and how we should act because of it. And of course, how the story ends, gives us a discussion of hope, too.

I'm not saying every scene is a deep piece of literature. We've still got disaster-on-legs Rufus and all the wild, unbelievably wacky sh!t he pulls. But I'm saying that, embedded in Doomsday, are some memorable moments that take it straight and serious.

Doomsday is, when you think about it, more about Goal than Rufus. This is the game where Goal shines the most, and where Goal and Rufus have the most meaningful interactions together. It's WHIPLASH going back to the first game after this one, going back to when the relationship was Rufus staring, horny, at an unconscious body. Not saying that Doomsday is without its misogyny moments, but GOODNESS is it night and day between how Goal is portrayed in game one versus four. Lots of complex time spent on her strengths, weaknesses, struggles, and hopes.

You can feel the growth and time spent in the creation team for Doomsday, too. It's more polished all around than the first game. I didn't catch typos in the English sub lines. The game has added mechanics where clicking fast is needed to be done in tense scenes, making climaxes feel more dramatic. The art is as good as always if not better and you go through more areas than any other game location. The game is longer (probably to help it balance out with the trilogy). The music is composed with unity, with attention to several melodic themes that get replayed with orchestrational variation throughout the soundtrack.

We can talk about its long, stretched, overly complicated ending (though I do have to give credit where credit's due... this is some of the most complicated time travel storytelling I've experienced, and the writing presented it in a way I understood everything going on start to end). We can talk about a few unintuitive gameplay solutions. We can talk about some of the jokes that cross the line - Lotti being the big one for me. We can of course talk about how Doomsday is, like all Deponia games, one with recognizable flaws. Don't make this review to be me raving to the ends of the earth about Doomsday, because yeah, it's flawed, and admittedly, I sometimes still wish I could think about the trilogy without the radio interference of Doomsday's additions.

But I'm also saying: as someone who fell in love with Deponia, Chaos on Deponia, and Goodbye Deponia... and didn't THINK ANOTHER STORY COULD EVER WORK... I am shocked to say Daedalic proved me wrong.

They knew exactly what they were doing with this story.

Your mileage may vary on Doomsday, of course. But as for me? I say this is just as worth playing as the rest of the series. Give yourself a good month's break between the end of 3 before you hit 4, let 3's end sink in... and then just go in to have a good time and enjoy more hours with Rufus, Goal, and the wild world of trash planets and platypuses.

Enjoyable game! Completed over the course of 3 days, about 5 hours total of gameplay.

Astrohazard Solutions Ltd. combines Asteroids-reminiscent gameplay with a good story about the employees of an unethical corporation. The company earns its profit by removing space junk, asteroids, and other hazards away from its clients' property. You are the Operator of your team, controlling the drone that must push these hazards away before the object you're protecting gets damaged. The problem? This company might be bent TOO much on profits over ethics.

Game missions are fun, have some variety, can have amusing twists to them, and are integrated into the progressing plot. Initially I found that the difficulty levels and controls were perfectly balanced, with some challenge but still doability to each mission. However, as I upgraded my stats and became more strategic with my gameplay, I came to a point where many later missions could be completed easily by staying in one spot on the screen and pushing everything away from there. I would have liked more chances to have the AstroTractor and AstroMines be useful instead of relying solely on the AstroBeam/AstroShield; to have to move around more on the screen to remove hazards; and would have been happy with harder difficulties and longer levels.

The story is about the same level of complexity as the gameplay. It's straightforward but successful, with thought about the dangers of an unethical corporation, good points of humor and personality, and noticeable characterization within the main cast.

Depending on how invested you are in the characters, it might feel a little slow getting to the "good stuff." But once you get there... ohhhh is this QUITE A RIDE. Totally worth the playthrough.

If you liked the first, you'll like the second. Good continuation of the story, characters, world, and humor of Deponia. Refreshingly, each Deponia game seems to give you larger areas to explore, as well as more variety of music. Dare I say it, maybe too many platypuses though.

A wonderful end to the main Deponia trilogy's storyline. For both gameplay and story, I would say this is easily the most fun and satisfying in the series. Deponia's plot has the most impacting and memorable moments here in this game. And I especially enjoyed playing once I got to the three Rufus gameplay format - it's ENJOYABLE to problem-solve and interact in three simultaneous, separate environments, sometimes helping other Rufuses out along the way.

Somehow I got emotional with this one, too. I didn't think Deponia would make me emotional. Sheesh. I need to work on getting too emotionally invested in everything. But that does say that they ended the story right, no?

♪ Huzzah! A fun and cool game! ♪

I don't typically play point-and-click games, but I find the Deponia series worth the playthrough.

Let's get cons out of the way. There are cons, but none of them bother me. As with any of the Daedalic Entertainment games I've picked up, solutions AREN'T straightforward and puzzles - while fully doable - can be frustrating. You become better at figuring out Daedalic's zany solutions the more games you play, but there's something to be said that Deponia isn't bad with a walkthrough if you just want the humor and storyline. (At least you can choose to skip puzzles so you don't get stuck!) Last, while the English voice actors are DOWNRIGHT WONDERFUL and I do play this game with the dub (I almost exclusively watch/play subs, for reference), there are occasional English spelling errors for the text that you'll see, and some audio glitches where spoken lines are accidentally repeated. That, plus a few glitches in animation, are really all that's the pitfalls - which again, aren't collectively bothersome to me.

What's attracted me to Deponia, and has made me play through this game several times, is a combination of several things.

First: artwork. The visual style of Deponia is charming, whimsical, full of personality, and completed with quite the artful eye. Every background in the game is great. Character designs are memorable and diverse. It's fun to view. I often try to entice my friends into interest with screencaps of the setting.

Second: the humor. I'd heard that Deponia had a rougher, more cynical humor style than The Night of the Rabbit. The Night of the Rabbit was the first game I checked out with Daedalic, and while the art was gorgeous, the music charming, and the setting sweet... it's never Pulled Me In. The Night of the Rabbit is childhood innocence. Deponia, not so much. So when I heard about the Deponia series, I realized they'd be much more up my personal tastes. And that's right. While we can argue the ethics of humor regarding some of Deponia's jokes (there's misogynistic jokes... even suicide jokes in the third game...), I find something altogether fun about playing a deliquent, egotistic @$$hole whose commonly-selfish solutions screw the people around you. There's some good chuckles to be had about the "not okay" solutions to the game and the consequences of your choices. Some people might call this teenaged boy humor. Others may call it a great atmosphere. I see it mostly as the latter.

Last: the storyline. Especially if you go through Deponia, Chaos on Deponia, and Goodbye Deponia, you'll get an attention-worthy storyline. I like the story, and between the humor and the narrative, that's why I got pulled in to playing all the games more than once. The story's not perfect. Sometimes plot twists feel convoluted (though not so much in a second playthrough, where you understand foreshadowing and references - the more I've played, the more I've seen the story is TIGHT, and increasingly respected it). Sometimes you'll want more explanation. But it's good. It's fun. It's got great characters. It's got a cool set-up on a barely-inhabitable junk planet. It's got (not saying any spoilers) a very memorable and well-done ending to the trilogy.

So I like it. I do give a thumbs up to Deponia. Huzzah! This series has been quite worthwhile for me, and I would say it's worth checking out.

I played and completed Long Live the Queen in one setting. It was not my intention to spend four straight hours of the late evening (and early morning... up until 1:45 AM) playing this game. Nevertheless, once I began, I felt a tenacious urge to figure out how to beat it.

I came into this game knowing that there would be some frustration - there would be many different ways to die, no matter what strategy you chose. While this is true, and there were several times I had to completely start over because I played myself in a hole from which there was no way to survive, it only took me five main tries/restarts before I reached a successful ending. Given all the screaming reviews on Steam talking about the challenge, I thought it would take a little longer to win than four hours... I'm no supreme strategist... so while I would say that the game isn't easy to breeze through, I also wouldn't call it a BEAST of a challenge. It can give you moderate frustrations, nothing to the point of making you angry, but simply amused at dying yet again, and more determined to best the game.

I will say that, even though it took me only four hours to finish the game my first time, I feel as though it was worth the experience. I had fun!

From a gameplay standpoint, Long Live the Queen doesn't sound interesting. The gameplay aspect certainly didn't sound interesting to me when I first heard about this game. You basically click a few buttons and then read what happens. That's the full interactive element of it. Yes. All you do with this game is click choices. You click which classes you want to take (aka, what skills you want to invest in), you click which political/dialogue choices you want to take, and you click which activites you want to do over the weekend (to change what bonuses you get for learning different skills).

But again, there's this gripping quality of taking on the challenge. The game does have a way of making you not want to quit until you've made it to the end. You WANT to figure out how to survive. You WANT to beat this game when it tricks you into dying yet another way. You WANT to see if your gut choices will lead you to a good ending, or if you'll be surprised by something turning sour. That's the reason I played this game straight through with no break... I wanted, stubbornly, to reach the end.

Long Live the Queen is, in some ways, a game about the story. I wouldn't say that I found the story particularly gripping or the characters all that interesting. No character seemed to have much personality, for instance. It was also hard to keep track of the countries and characters in Long Live the Queen. The plotline does have a rise in action to a decent climax point, but it's not that deeply satisfying narrative you get with a story well-structured. But where Long Live the Queen has an interesting story is in how your choices affect yourself, the people around you, and your kingdom. It's interesting in how you will or won't survive, and in what state your kingdom will be if you finally do get crowned queen. That is what is primarily engaging about this game: the multitude of options, and the player's choices to tackle any one of those options. So it's the strategy, and how the strategy that affects the story, that makes this a worthwhile experience to have.

It really does have a multitude of options, by the way. I'm sure I've only experienced a fraction of what's possible to occur in the story. This will probably make the game have some good replay value... I can explore other choices, strategies, and avenues... and see if I can survive those treacherous routes, too!

One other small thing that's cool is that you can save your file - with the full text of the version you played - for a keepsake. It's a small thing, but I like that a lot. I can automatically store the choices I made and see what the story was start to end for my personal playthrough.

Altogether, I would say that this is an enjoyable game. I would recommend it to people who want to get mildly frustrated for a few hours, people who like the puzzle of beating semi-challenging odds, and people who like to explore many possible routes and possibilities.

Simultaneously endearing and addicting, Starbound is one game capable of providing innumerable hours of enjoyable gameplay. Whether you wish to explore strange new worlds and civilizations, or battle a space mobster penguin in a flying saucer, the adventure is there awaiting you.

By and large Starbound is a stressless, carefree, and charming sort of game. While some of the bosses in the game can be somewhat challenging, it is not the sort of game that invites much frustration. Others may comment that the controls can, in some instances, feel a little clunky; I wasn’t too pleased I could only use my weapons while standing still… but overall, I cannot complain, and I cannot say that minor nitpicks like that have ever bothered me. There have only been two areas in which I have experienced minor frustration.

Number one cause of minor frustration: some of the modes of the game, such as Survivor, cause you to lose pixels (currency) and drop all of your current items upon death… and if you drop your items in an out-of-the-way, hard-to-access location (like a cave on the far side of a planet), it can become rather irritating to attempt to regain your lost inventory (you might die SEVERAL MORE TIMES in the process, only worsening your situation). However, players can choose to use the Casual mode instead, in which no pixels or items are lost upon death in the game.

Number two cause of minor frustration: while Starbound provides a lot of in-game teaching to help you learn how to use various items and equipment, there were a number of instances in which I had to Google how to do something I thought would be intuitive – how to plant and grow crops, how to build blocks with the matter manipulator, how to eat food, how to craft certain items, etc. Maybe this is solely my problem, caused by obliviousness, and others find these actions more intuitive. However, for me, at the start of the game, I often found myself fiddling around, confused about how to proceed with what I thought should have been simple tasks. But – that said, that was only a minor frustration at the start of gameplay. I have come to realize that Starbound is a lot about exploring options and discovering things on your own – and with that mindset, learning how to do new actions in a casual exploratory-sense became a lot of fun, and I lost all such taskmastering concerns about how to do things.

And that really is what makes Starbound so enjoyable: exploration. Exploration of planets and planets and planets and planets. Exploration of desert biomes, frozen mountain biomes, jungle biomes, ocean biomes, even flesh biomes. Exploration of various alien species civilizations. Exploration of worlds with one-eyed cat ghost alien creatures, fire-breathing bird alien creatures, hopping carrot alien creatures. Exploration of how to cook rice or build rope or construct shields or upgrade your space vessel. I will admit I haven't gotten too far into the story, even having done about 36 hours of gameplay... but I don't mind. It's just too fun to explore. I'll casually mosey my way through the story eventually.

I suspect some people could get bored of the biomes available on Starbound alone, or of the quests, or of the music, or of the general overall “feel” of Starbound. The game carries with it a sort of simplicity. For me, though, and the other individuals I know who play Starbound… it is carefree and addicting.

Mods for this game are definitely worth checking out, as they provide new layers to Starbound, and many more different types of things to explore.

Starbound is a game I would recommend to many people. Again, it is charming. It is endearing. It has a smile-evoking, amusing, uplifting sort of atmosphere to it. It is a game I have already spent many hours playing, and plan to spend many, many more.