Recent reviews by Meatbug

"Joining Server"

Yeah, well, i'd love to if the game would let me.


Campaign is fine though.

Helldivers 2 has something very special about it, though i am not sure if i can put it into words really.

It's a third-person shooter in which you select your loadout - weapons and stratagems - and then drop onto a world to fulfill main and secondary mission objectives and then you need to call in extraction and safely extract.
Sounds simple enough, and it's pretty easy to get into.
As for Stratagems: Those are powerful support weapons, orbital strikes, mines etc. that can and will help you with your mission.
To call these in, you need to press a certain order of buttons, imagine Kombos from fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter.

As for mission objectives, they are relatively varied, ranging from destroying things, to help some personell to evacuate, help launching a missile etc.
Though the enemies will definitely not let you do that in peace, as you'll encounter patrols throughout the map, enemy nests or factories you can or need to destroy.

Both factions (as of now, 2 more are likely to come in the future based on the map), the Automatons and Terminids, are very different and require a bit of adjusting when fighting against each one.

One thing that definitely stands out is the music, the main theme when you drop down to the planet is easily the most recognizable and just "cool" theme i've heard in a long time.

My experience with other palyers was also overwhelmingly positive. Yes, there are some clowns you might encounter who teamilll (oh yes, friendly fire is a thing and it can be hilarious if unintentional) but in my 200 hours so far, i've encountered only a handful of really negative players.
Mostly the games were fine, but a lot were actually pretty great, even with randoms.

Even the Microtransactions are relatively "soft". There's one premium currency, which you'll need to unlock Warbonds (kind of like a battle pass, in which you have items to unlock).
But this premium currency can be found in missions, so if you look out for these and accumulate them, there's not even a need to buy these Super Credits.
In my playtime, i collected enough to be able to afford every Warbond so far.

With Sony also apparently changing their stance on the PSN/Steam account linking, there's no reason for me to not recommend this game fully.

All that combined, the setting, the music, the community, the gamplay and how it can turn from easy peasy to absolute chaotic mayhem is just tons of fun and makes this game a worthwhile recommendation.

So, how ’bout a nice cup of LIBER-TEA?

While on paper the game might seem interesting, it's an outdated mess with absolute clunky controls, horrible translation to the point that you're more guessing what's wanted of you instead of understanding it and a general outdated look and feel.
Visually i don't mind outdated, if the game is fun and interesting, unfortunately it didn't feel fun to play.
Some of the design choices are also baffling, for example: you start out on an island, but without a map or any knowledge where other islands and ports are, so i can't even transport people somewhere and earn money, cause i don't know where to sail, the quest is on a time limit, but i also didn't find a map to buy...so...

When i set sail, i immediately encountered a pirate ship, which chased me and it came to battle, which was disappointing at best. It felt like minutes to just get into range for the cannons, but even then i basically missed all the time, until i got really close, but then i got boarded, got into a swordfight and lost to some low-life pirate and had a game over.
Oh, and that was on easy difficulty, just saying.
Now of course, i just started out and was probably underequipped, but the lack of polish, the lack of direction, the badly designed UI, clunky controls, terrible translations were all just too much, in order to enjoy the game.

Shame, as the premise is fine and with a better execution the game could be enjoyable. This way it might be something for hardcore fans, but certainly not for everyone else.

Now that Baldur's Gate 3 has earned it's great reviews and awards, i'd say it's well deserved.

I've started to play back when BG3 was released in early access and was actually not as optimistic at first, as the game seemed quite rough, but i guess that's to be expected.
Now, after full release and patches, it's been an absolute blast to play through the game and immerse myself in this world.

The story starts pretty straightforward - your player character gets infected with a little worm in your brain and after you escape, you seek to find a cure together with the characters you meet and recruit on the way.
A few twists and turns on the way and the whole story evolves into a world-ending event you either try to stop or be part of (The Dark Urge origin ftw!)

Which brings me to a big point of the game: Player choice.
Throughout your adventure, you'll make choices, side with certain characters and/or factions, choose how you react to things and those choices will have consequences, some big, some rather small.
It's definitely a game you should play more than once, to see different outcomes.

But what is choice, if the world doesn't pull you in?
Well, thankfully we don't need to think about that, cause the evironments are beautiful, full of details and there's tons of things to explore and find.
Together with the stellar voice acting and well written characters (some more, some less) you can easily lose yourself in the world. And not just the main characters speak to you, every cat, goblin, owlbear, side-character has a word or two to say to you.
Granted, most of those peripheral characters just have a sentence or two to say, but it does factor into the atmosphere.
And especially the animals are always fun to talk to, assuming you have the skill or potion for it.

Gameplay-wise all characters and classes (that i played myself or have used through party members) feel good and balanced. All with their own way to play and advantages and disadvantages.
And you can either play one of the main characters or create your character in the editor, which gives you enough options to let your creativity run wild.

So if you have a knack for fantasy RPG's, Baldur's Gate 3 is a no-brainer.
But even for newcomers it might be a good entry point, as you also don't necessarily need to have much knowledge about anything, though it helps here and there obviously.

Deserved Game of the Year award!

Well, this is a tough one and i would love to give the game a "neutral" rating, rather than a negative one, though having finished, there's just a lot of (mostly smaller) things that just sum up to an experience that i haven't enjoyed as much as i probably could have, if some things in the game were just handled differently.

Now, let's begin with the positives:
The game looks pretty well, has some very decent voice acting and the story is intriguing and the gameplay is mostly fine.
You control Robert Conway, a retired private investigator bound to a wheelchair, who suddenly finds himself involved in a kidnapping case.
There's several suspects among the neighbors and each one is basically a chapter in the game, where you move around in your wheelchair, investigate items, combine them, pick locks and in the end put the evidence together and come to a conclusion.
Overall, the gameplay is pretty good... BUT it's also quite tedious, mostly due to the bad controls and camera.
Controlling your character is done via WASD, so far so standard, though you'll do that with a (more or less) fixed camera angle. Imagine the early Resident Evil games.
It doesn't work as fluid and well. Worse even, your overview of the environment is severaly lacking at times and interacting with items and the environment can suffer because of it as well, as you don't see where you can interact and you also need to align pretty precisely in order for the interact prompt to appear.
It's tedious at best, needlessly frustrating at worst.
The lockpicking minigame is tedious as well. It's not as simple and fast as in other games and because of that and the amount of times you have to do it in the short span of the game, it certainly overstayed it's welcome for me.

As said, the story and characters all have something going for them and overall i was pretty intrigued by it and wanted to know how the story unfolds...BUT Conway himself is an absolute tool. He behaves so irrationally sometimes, breaks several laws on his quest to find the kidnapped girl, accuses people of wrongdoings and the worst is, at the end, he didn't even seem to learn anything from it.
There's no character arch, there's no "well i should have acted differently" in the end, he's actually quite an a**hole at times and gets away with it. And even when he's wrong, others don't even get the apology they would deserve, seeing how he behaved.
Because of these things, he's just not a very likeable character in my opinion.
From a supposed retired private investigator who has been in the job for a long time, he sure behaves like a rookie.
Accusations are made on gut feelings, people don't really talk with each other, cause if they would, the story and it's mystery would fall apart, so everyone needs to act erratic, stupid and in contrived ways, so they can all seem like suspects.
This just didn't work for me personally.

Now as said, that doesn't necessarily make the game bad, and if you can overlook story contrivances and characters acting in a certain way, just to service the plot, then it's probably a fine game you should look into.
For me, it's a "meh" experience and it could have been a good one, if certain things would have been handled differently.

Terminator: Resistance is a big positive surprise to me. It doesn't have the most visually impressive next-gen graphics, nor a big open world to explore, nor any other real "fluff". It's a great example as to why a game doesn't necessarily need all of that to just be a fun shooter.

Granted, the non-discounted price tag seems a tad high, but having bought it on sale for 16 bucks, i can't complain really and think that's a fair price for what i got out of it.

In the game, you're playing Jacob Rivers, a lone survivor of a Resistance squad which was wiped out by a new form of Terminator. Now you're trying to survive, rescue other survivors on the way and rejoin the Resistance in their fight against Skynet.
The story ties neatly into the first movies and is interesting enough to keep you going. In between fights, you're usually coming back to the Resistance hideout, where you can shop for weapons and items, craft things or talk to your fellow survivors. Based on your choices throughout the game, you can also get multiple endings.

The core gameplay is basically your standard first-person shooter. You have multiple guns you can find or buy to fight against all kinds of machines or you can try to sneak around the levels.
These levels aren't open worlds, but more like level hubs. There's space enough to be able to explore a bit, but it's also not overwhelming and doesn't make the game too stretched thin with the same objectives plastered all over.
You're also able to level up and put points into a small variety of skills that either raise your weapon damage, increases the size of your backpack, makes you tougher or lockpick better etc.

Visually, the game is servicable. It's atmospheric enough that you can immerse yourself in the world, but it's also nothing to write home about.
The music however feels always fitting and it's very atmospheric. Somber and quiet when you're in your hideout, adrenaline-pumping electric guitar chords when you're in a fight. And the excellent and iconic Terminator Theme is present throughout the game as well, sometimes fully, sometimes just a few notes.

If you're a Terminator fan i highly recommend getting the game (on sale). As mentioned, i think the original price feels a bit steep for the ~ 20 hours you're getting out of it for one playthrough (DLC + Infiltrator Mode included).
Now on higher difficulties, you might not be as fast, but it is a relatively short game.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, cause i also never felt bored or had the feeling i was just playing some filler content, it stayed interesting and fresh throughout the whole playthrough.

If anything, Terminator: Resistance is a raw diamond, lacking some polish here and there, maybe a tad too pricey but the experience was fun throughout the whole time and i'm now definitely looking forward to the Robocop game.

This is a kind of a love-hate relationship.

UPDATE: Jan. 2024
Well, here's the love part: I recently started playing again, and had no crashes or other issues so far.
I'd say if you're looking for a third-person cover looter shooter, the Division 2 offers a lot fo content, snappy gameplay, loads of skills to use, builds to try out and enough endgame content (with DLC) to not get easily bored.
It's story isn't as straightforward and coherent as the Division 1, but it's still interesting enough.


OLD REVIEW PART:
The game itself, if it works, is quite fun and good. But more often than not, it just doesn't work.
As said, the game isn't bad, but the technical state of it most definitely is.
Even with all things i can change (playing on direct x 11, deactivating in-game overlays, setting anti-cheat to one cpu core only, updated drivers etc.) there's constant crashes/freezes - with the latest update it seems to have worsened for me.
Where i could have "normal" playing sessions before, where i could play for hours without issues, now it seems to freeze or crash every 20 minutes.
As you can imagine, that's not fun.

It's also not like this issue itself is a new one. This persisted since years now with varying degrees of severity and nothing was ever fixed.
And yes, it is the game, not any outside factor.

Shame Ubisoft!

This is a fantastic little game and knowing that it has been developed by a very small team, it's even more impressive and the production quality rivals that of some big budget titles.
So, if you're on the fence about getting it, don't be and buy it, it is that good.

The basic premise of the game is basically a sort of "Groundhog Day". Your character is stranded in a roman-era city, filled with mysteries and intrigue. One of the very first things you learn is, that if anyone commits a crime, everyone is going to be punished for it. If that happens, you are able to reach a portal that will reset the day and lets you keep all items that you've gotten until this point, so you're better prepared and hopefully able to solve the mysteries of this place.

Most of the game consists of dialogues with the different inhabitants, all of which are very well voiced. By talking to the different characters, you learn about the city, other characters, the rules and try to help with different quests.
If you've helped a person once and reset the day, you can also "outsource" the solution to this quest to another character you meet right at the beginning, so you don't have to do everything yourself again, which is a neat trick to keep you on track ond focus on the big picture, instead of doing the same quest over and over again.

Not just the voices are good, but visually the game is pretty well done too. It might not be next-gen level, but again, seeing that this was developed by a small team, it's quite impressive in my opinion.

Where the game stands out is probably the quests and structure. As you're living in a timeloop, you'll most probably won't solve anything right from the get go. Failing at first, then investigate the world and characters, getting to know more and more details and then solving things after another iteration of the day is just very rewarding.
It also creates some fun moments, where you can just mess with some of the people, as you know more than them and can use it against them.
It's just a lot of fun and the mystery surrounding the place pulled me right in from the start.

The whole game plays a lot like an adventure with a lot of exploration, talking to people, slight "puzzles" (less like rubik's cube puzzles and more like "try to get item X and get it to person Y") and a little bit of combat.
The combat itself isn't a major focus and pretty easy, so don't worry too much if combat isn't your thing.

Overall, i just think everything is very well put together from the story, interesting characters, an interesting premise and mystery that constantly dangles in front of you, leading you through the game and an overall quality that is quite impressive for such a title.
If i'd have to find something to criticise, it's probably that one of the endings comes a bit out of nowhere and caught me off-guard and felt a bit "off".
But that didn't diminished the fun i had and it was still very intriguing.

Definitely recommend this to anyone interested in adventure and exploration games with great characters and an interesting mystery story to solve.

A lot has already been said about the state of Cyberpunk 2077, especially right after launch. Now, with some time and patches, have things improved and can Cyberpunk 2077 redeem itself?
Well, i guess that heavily depends - There's a lot of light, but also, still, a bit of shadow.

In Cyberpunk 2077, you're playing as the character "V", a Mercenary trying to become famous in Night City. You can fully customize your character and you got quite an extensive choice of doing so.
After a heist going wrong, you must find a way to fix the damage that has been done, with a new ally at your side.

Finding the solution to the problem you caused will lead you through Night City, doing several main and side-quests for a multitude of characters.
This is usually where Cyberpunk 2077 shines. The voice-acting of the characters is fantastic and each one has it's own unique personality.
The quality of the main- and side-quest is also mostly very good. There are obviously some that are more memorable than others, but a lot of them are quite intriguing with some being really fantastic.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2329649239

Visually, the game is great as well. Night City itself, with it's neon lights, advertisements everywhere and huge mega-blocks is a fantastic looking city, with the outskirts being a dry desert-like environment with huge trash dumps throughout.
Immersion-wise it's a hit and miss. There's actually little to interact with or do in Night City, besides following quests or doing the smaller Gigs (which are mostly just little flavour missions to earn money and level up).
Now, there are some easter-eggs to be found throughout the world, but they're very few and far in between - one for example was a reference to the infamous Indiana Jones fridge-scene, where Indy was hiding from, and surviving, a nuclear blast. It did get a chuckle out of me, but it's mostly just not that interesting to really explore things, as you mostly just find items or crafting components which you'll get plenty through missions themselves. There is detail in the streets, on the walls with graffiti, art etc. but it's all surface level.
A lot of that is standard nowadays with open world titles, but i just feel it's a missed opportunity to bring in more things to do, interact with and give the player a deeper dive into the City and world of Cyberpunk.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2918074060

From a technical perspective, i had little issues. No crashes, no huge bugs or anything. However, there are still glitches and bugs that pull you out of your immersion. It's not necessarily too bad, but it can be annoying, especially if it's in (cut)scenes that want to convey a more serious tone or a heartwarming moment. This ranged from characters grabbing a bottle and having a drinking animation, while not actually having anything in their hands, a character running around with a gun in it's hand in a crucial and serious in tone endsequence. Sometimes traffic behaves erratic without my involvement, hearing sound close by that sounds like a fight or car crash while not seeing anything.
I also encountered pop-ins every once in a while and the view distance could also be quite low-quality sometimes.
Overall, those all were smaller issues, but not as rare as i would have hoped.

Gameplay wise there's a lot of variety, from being a stealthy quick-hacking expert or jumping into the fight head-on with a wide variety of guns or getting some implants for your arms to either slash up your enemies, punch them or hit them with the mono-wire. It's fun to try out things and play differently each time, though you can't re-specc completely (only perks, not your main attributes), which is a shame imho and a choice i also don't really understand.

Nowadays, you can also wear whatever items give you the best stats AND not look like an absolute clown, as they've added the option to make you appear in any outfit that you've found, regardless of what you are actually wearing.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2320602055

The fixes and additions are, all in all, in my opinion relatively minor in scope, but they do improve the game, especially the smaller quality of life improvements. Is it a totally different game or experience now, than it was before?
Eh, not really, unless you were absolutely plagued by bugs and technical issues.

But overall, and coming to my personal conclusion, it is a good game. Put aside the disappointment from what it could have been, it's a good experience, with memorable characters and quests in a visually impressive world, that's unfortunately a bit shallow.
The cyberpunk themes, world and lore is interesting and the gameplay is quite fun.
While it's still janky at times and has things that could be improved (seriously, why is the view of the mini-map so limited and small???) it's a good game in my opinion.
Unfortunately, i think this game tarnished it's own brand and that of CDProjekt Red quite heavily. Not sure if they're planning a sequel/prequel/another entry but i doubt it, which is a shame, cause if it wouldn't have been such a technical disaster at launch, this could have been quite a hit.
Now, it's legacy might just be being a good game with a lot of disappointment attached to it.

Here it is, the sequel to the legendary adventure series Monkey Island and the question is: Was it worth the wait?

To me, the answer is a yes. A mild one, but nevertheless it's positive.
Which wasn't a given, as i wasn't a fan of the new look of Guybrush. With his blocky face, red nose-tip (a kind of phallic nose in general) and his stubble beard he resembled a drunkard more than the character i fell in love with all those years ago.
But in-game it turned out to be less of an issue to me, i got used to it and the humour, the characters and world made up for that design decision.
It's most definitely also a more divisive game, considering some design and story-decisions, but personally i think they have found a way to make it work (mostly).

Now, while i've already mentioned Guybrush's design, i'd say the overall artstyle, is quite fine. I do think some characters look a bit weird or clash a bit with the style, but it's few and far in between and overall i quite enjoyed it.

As for the gameplay, you probably already noticed that there's no verb interface. Gone are the days where you clicked on "Talk", "Open", "Use" or others, now it's either right or left-click on items, characters and other hotspots.
It's streamlined and i'd say it works in favour of a proper pacing, even though you might lose some funny commentary when trying out different, not obvious combinations.

I'd say the difficulty of puzzles is mostly fin but even if you're stuck, you do get a hint book you can use. There was however one situation in the very last puzzle where i was stuck for longer than i'd like to admit, because i didn't see an item that helped with solving a puzzle.

As for the world and characters, you will see a lot of familiar faces and they're all brought to life through fantastic voice acting and animations.
The world itself and the different islands and places you visit look fine, though you also do visit familiar places you already know from the series. I would have loved to see a few more new things i haven't already been to.

So, how does the story hold up and can it bring the series to a satisfying end?
Well, i guess this is the part where players might have a very differing opinion.
Personally, i think they did something that a lot of players might not have been expected, but in my eyes tied things together quite neatly. It might not been what people wanted or expected, but then again, i doubt anything could have satisfied all or the vast majority of them.
I can see how what they did is divisive, but i also did smile at the end and was glad i could have a last "Goodbye", a last ride with the characters in the world of Guybrush Threepwood, LeChuck, Elaine Marley, Murray, the Voodoo Lady, Stan, Otis and all the others.
I guess the journey IS more important than the end itself.