Nylige anmeldelser av #NV

Ulysses
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'It has been a long time since that fateful day Courier. You have traveled so far and believe me I watched your journey carefully. Overcoming bandits and raiders, defeating wild animals and abominations, surviving places full of traps and mad psychopaths. You found a fortune in remnants of the old world, helped people to fight for their beliefs and ideals. You united tribes and gangs, saved villages and all this time you brought the ones you despise to justice. You were fighting for a flag you believe in, a symbol stronger than a simple human life. But you have lost your path, completely forgetting the past. I waited for the day that we will meet each other. The time has come to take this lonesome road, meet me in the 'Divide‘ and let’s settle this score Courier Six.‘
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While the 'Zion Canyon' in 'Honest Hearts' was one of the cleanest and purest places that the Courier will ever be able to visit, the 'Divide' represents the total opposite: A former military area and an adjacent city, a base with the purpose of storing, evolving and testing nuclear warheads. But some time ago an incident happened, radiation spread and explosions destroyed the facilities and housing complexes. Now the place is covered by ruins and inhabitated by scarred and cursed former soldiers and creepy abominations. Hot wind, full of radiaton and contaminated material darkens the sight and peels away the skin of careless visitors while blocking away the sun, shutting off the 'Divide' from the outside world. And then there is the Courier fighting his way to the mysterious person that 'invited‘ him to this dreadful place – looking for answers for so many questions.

On your journey you will be confronted with insane amounts of radiaton, in some areas the radioactive contamination increases up to 15 or 16 points per second – absolutely lethal for every human being, even a radiation suit won’t protect you for long. The reason for this level of radiation is an interesting story bringing together the old world and the new, told by the antagonist, your mysterious invitor only known as 'Ulysses‘. This brilliant character confronts you with your actions from the past, former symbols, events and moral consequences. The dialogues (or monologues…) are great and give insight into this contaminated area, the background and its connection to fractions and events of the main game. As usual the player can make decisions which lead to different endings (which are also able to influence your main game), he may gain access to several new weapons, armors and perks along his way and luckily there are many little stories and places that aren’t relevant to the main story and allow for some nice exploration. Unfortunately the story seems a bit rushed at the end and the final confrontation could have been even more intense.

Until you’re finally able to confront Ulysses your journey will lead you through the ruins and remnants of this former proud military area. You can see the destruction and the chaos that has spread everywhere and the overall atmosphere is quite gloomy– in terms of mood and feeling this DLC is definitly excellent and a ‚dark‘ difference to the main game. This is also supported by the hazardous difficulty level, in the Divide e.g. a 'Deathclaw‘ really deserves its name: if you’re well trained and have some good equipment you may at least be able to survive two hits instead of one. Having a good strategy is your only way to survive in this hellish area, but sometimes you can get a bit angry because 'challenging‘ and 'annoying‘ are so close to each other and you may die several cheap deaths.
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The main quest of 'Lonesome Road‘ may entertain you for approximately six hours and shows you a piece of land so irradiated and destroyed that it really reflects the pain and hell brought by the nuclear attack in the great war. It’s a damned place with an interesting story and a tragical and dark atmosphere and your journey will provide you a lot of information and answers – but there will also be old and new questions that are left unmentioned and ignored. Ulysses is a great character and even though the ending is a bit rushed it feels like a great trip that brought the Courier in contact with his past and the old world. And how the world has changed since the old days. Or hasn’t it changed at all?

"If war doesn't change, men must change, and so must their symbols. Even if it is nothing at all, know what you follow, Courier..." - Ulysses

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Have you ever had the nightmare that five robot-brains kidnap you, try some weird and morally very questionable experiments and remove your brain, spine and you heart? And of course after the operations you're still alive, looking for your organs while running from laser-shooting robo-scorpions in a giant crater in the middle of nowhere. No? Sounds absolutely ridicioulus? Well yeah...

...so welcome to the 'BIG MT', where theoretically the power of science creates the world of tomorrow and practically weird doctors slice up humans, ignoring every topic about morality and ethics that has ever been written, created or even thought of. During your very joyful visit you will be able to meet insane remnants of the past (mad scientists with very special personalities and some technical problems...), while traveling through a beautiful scientific facility with psychotic test subjects waiting behind every corner for their prey... uhm no, let's call it 'new friend'. Discover things that would better be left undiscovered and you will finally be able to reunite with your missing parts. 'BIG MT' the happiest place on earth for the whole family - book your trip today,

'Old World Blues' is the third DLC of 'Fallout: New Vegas' and brings the test subject (let's call him the courier) to a former top-secret facility where some mad scientists become more and more insane: The Big MT. A crater in the middle of nowhere, forgotten by the world and inhabitated by immortal robo-brains, robo-scorpions and a lot of experiments that should have never been conducted,

The story itself is a hommage to old-school (& trashy) Science-Fiction storys from the 50's and 60's and is being presented and told in a fantastic way. During the five or six hours of the main quest I enjoyed the huge amount of crazy humour, the mad conversations and the whole hilarious craziness, it's a nice diversification to the main game. As usual there are different endings and I have to admit: After I finished it for the first time I reloaded just to try out the other options and to see the different dialogues and outcomes - the overall picture makes a really enjoyable (and trashy) Sci-Fi B-movie, especially the dialogues with Dr. Mobius, Dr. Klein and Dr. Dala are hilarious.

While looking for your missing brain (and spine and heart...) you will meet brilliant (more precise would be: unbelievably mad) characters and explore a huge facility with a lot of different scientific departments. Just as in the normal game you'll fight and loot a lot - fortunately there is a huge amount of new weapons, armors, items and enemies. The whole time in the wasteland you were looking for your own talking armor that asks you if you like her and reminds you that you forgot to shut your Pip-Boy light while sneaking? Rejoice my friend, this DLC has it!

In difference to 'Honest Hearts' and 'Dead Money' I didn't stumble accross any bugs or glitches while visiting the Big MT and I don't even know what negative points of this DLC I could mention - it has the same good recipe as in the main game, spiced up with great characters, a solid and interesting story and several new locations, items and enemies. The missions aren't repetetive and several new and interesting ideas (like different testing areas) make it a nice change from the main game. And finally the Big MT itself is a quite huge locations with dozens of places that you can explore and that aren't covered by the main story. You even gain some nice new perks and by removing some entrails and adding some robo-stuff you become technically a cyborg - I ain't even mad that's pretty awesome.
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As you may have noticed I really enjoyed this DLC - characters, story, location, everything is on a high level and if you want to visit all the new places and find the hidden hints and secrets you'll definitly need more than 10 or 12 hours. And in this time you will have some hilarious dialogues. You're not believing me? Well I answer this by quoting Dr. Klein:

"IT IS NOT AN ARGUMENT IF ONE IS CLEARLY RIGHT AND THE OTHER IS CLEARLY WRONG!" (And yes even in the game he shouts this and Captain Caps Lock is activated - his volume unit is broken)

The Burned Man
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'Courier have you heard the legends about him? Yes, sure you did. The Burned Man, the curse of Ceasar's Legion. Legend says he’s the former Malpais Legate, one of the founders of the legion and the one who led its army to the first battle of the hoover dam. It was a massacre and Ceasar, not known for his mercy and forgiveness, ordered his execution by setting him on fire. But some folks believe he didn’t die that day and now he’s out there, seeking vengeance…'

‚Honest Hearts‘ is the second DLC of 'Fallout: New Vegas' and leads our beloved courier into the Zion Canyon in Utah where some native tribes wage war against each other. You have been hired as a bodyguard for a small caravan but not long after your arrival you get into in an ambush, ending up as the only survivor. Now you’re out there in the canyon far away from the wasteland of New Vegas and without the sligthest idea which way brings you back…

The DLC area is quite a change to the main game as you will visit one of the ‚cleanest‘ areas in the whole wasteland,. There is not the sligthest trace of radiaton in the canyon, even the water is pure like a crystal. Everything seems so harmonic and natural – well, aside some indigenous people who try to kill you. These people of the ‚White leg‘ tribe want to enter the Legion and to show their loyality they have been ordered to destroy the two other tribes that are living peacefully in the former national park. But these peaceful tribes still have an ace upon their sleeve: the infamous burned man.

The new characters are quite interesting, especially the ‚Burned Man‘ is an absolute highlight: a great character with an amazing backstory about rise and fall, an infamous legend of the wasteland whose fate you can decide. Unfortunately the story about the three tribes of the canyon, the evacuation and the counterstrike is just average and some great moments are mostly created by the characters and the dialogues not the story and its turns.

Regarding the gameplay you will do the usual stuff: kill animals and people, loot forgotten buildings, corpses and caves and try to argue with mad men. In difference to ‚Dead Money‘ and its survival aspect there is no great difference to the main game. At least you have way more options regarding endings, sidequests and characters than in the former DLC and a nice little map that you can actually explore – with several places that aren’t relevant for the main quest.
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All in all ‚Honest Hearts‘ brings some nice ‚native american‘ style to the wasteland and will entertain you for approximately three or four hours. You will meet interesting characters, follow a nice (but average) storyline and gain several background information about the Legion and events from the main game. Unfortunately the DLC was (at least in my case) quite buggy so installing a bug fix mod from the Nexus would be a wise plan. Let’s conclude this review with some more remarkable words of the Burned Man (I admit I really like this character and his change of heart):

‚I want to have my revenge. Against him. Against Caesar. I want to call it my own, to make my anger God's anger. To justify the things I've done.‘

'Ah another victim, were you also following your greedy lust for another adventure, looking for treasures of the old world? Well you have found them, welcome to the 'Sierra Madre'. Prior to the great war it was planned to be the biggest casino in the world, a place of unbelievable fame and prosperity. Then the bombs fell down and the grand opening became a massacre. That was 200 years ago and its treasures are still hidden beneath all the security systems, an undead army of cursed ghost people and a toxic cloud, that kills every living being. Sounds...

...like it is the perfect time for a heist. Time to break the bank.'
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Well this DLC definitly had potential. After finding the source of a mysterious signal in the wasteland you will be kidnapped. While waking up you notice that you have been stripped of all your goods, but at least you got a nice new collar - explosions included. A mysterious man welcomes you in the 'Sierra Madre' and tells you about his plan to get into the casino and find its secrets. He gives you the choice: help him or you will be blown up. Of course you also need a good crew of 'specialists' and so you start looking for the other pawns in this mad man's game.

I really enjoyed the beginning of 'Dead Money': the difficulty is set quite high and the different traps and environmental dangers made some of the earlier trips inside the 'Sierra Madre' a nice challenge. The story started interesting as well and the other characters seemed 'crazy' enough for an interesting cast. So my expectations grew...

...but unfortunately they were crushed quite fast. The small map(s), the backtracking, the amount of enemy types (ghost people + cockroaches + hologram), the level structure and the traps - nothing here was spectacular and it felt boring and repetetive quite early. The interesting story became more and more confusing and even the nice little hints to events from the original game and other DLC didn't make up for the narrative problems (and a rather boring antagonist). So neither the story nor the characters lived up to my expectations.
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And now (four or five hours later) I'm leaving the 'Sierra Madre'. At first I enjoyed my visit, it started nicely and the survival aspect was an interesting change to the main game. It gave me some nice story hints, some new weapons and armors (and an insanely high amount of caps from the heist...), but I still have the feeling that it has wasted so much potential, the story about the heist and the casino could have been so much better. In the end 'Dead Money' is just a mediocre DLC, with several good and some bad parts, nothing spectacular - but you can still enjoy some time of your visit in this haunted memorial of the old world.

[… but mods can change everything.]
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These words are the prelude to the ‚Fallout‘ series, a world on the brink of destruction. During the great war in 2077 all the nations launched their nuclear weapons and civilization was nearly annihilated. Some people have been seeking shelter inside the vaults, others died by the explosions, the contamination and the fallout. Nowadays ruins are most of the time the only witnesses of former glorious cities and nations. Mutations have spread, the curse of radiaton still haunts the wastelands and brutal raiders and gangs wage war against poor survivors and former armies. And then there's you, a simple courier who has been hired to transport a mysterious package. You had the feeling that something wasn't right there. But you still took the job. And in the end...

... you’ve been shot in the head. Twice. Then your pursuers robbed and burried you. But somehow you’re still alive, rescued by a mysterious robot and a doctor. Of course you not only want your package back but you also demand some answers. And so you start your adventure through the wasteland of Nevada, following the trails of your former pursuers. And this will lead you right into the heart of the Strip, where the former glory of Vegas is being rebuilt.
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Typcially for the ‚Fallout‘ series you are able to explore a huge open world, a post-apocalyptic wasteland where hundreds of abandoned buildings, ruins, caves and so on wait for a curageous adventurer. You will find countless weapons, armors and items, fight against raiders, bandits, animals and mutated beings like ghouls or death claws. With every lock you open, every enemy you defeat, you’ll get stronger, forming your own character. You may evolve into the intelligent mastermind, focussing on energy weapons and science or into the evil cannibal with a love for rusty chainsaws – the choice is up to you. And meanwhile you can follow the storyline of the main quest or you lose yourself in the huge wasteland, the sidequests, the crafting or the fighting. Or you'll just go to the casinos and try to hit the jackpot. The amount of content is huge, so many persons to talk to, so many places to visit, so much stuff to blow up.

And all these positive points make up for some of the games disadvantages: Even with different fixes and stuff the stability isn’t perfect, the translation of some items, dialogues and stuff is (at least in the german version) ‚interesting‘ (maybe ‚creative‘ would be the better term) and some stuff like e.g. loading errors can annoy the crap out of you…

…but you will still continue playing. At least I did it. Because I really love the style and atmosphere, the soundtrack, the exploring, the development of my own character and all the other stuff. And due to the great 'Nexus' modding community you can make the game look absolutely stunning and beautiful, you can add even more content and make it an apocalyptic masterpiece. But even without the mods you won't regret the time you spend in New Vegas.
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So all in all there’s only one more thing to say: Gather your stimpaks and the ammo, load your energy rifle and ride into the sunset… *Vault-Boy approves*

Fortune Teller Machine
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At first I did not know what to think of the 'Binding of Isaac: Rebirth': I've been attacked by smiling piles of poop and killed them with my tears. Meanwhile I was picking up several toxic substances and organs before I died quite soon to the creepy version of 'Snake'. My thoughts were pretty much:
"What is this? Why... oh my god, wtf. Ah, c'mon one more try."

Approximately several hundred deaths later (killed by: poop, fire, flies, severed heads, living hearts, creepy huge spiders, needles, eyeballs, headless torsos and other stuff right from a creepy horror story) I can definitely say: This game is awesome and I can't stop playing it. It's probably the best rogue-like that I've played so far and even after 60 hours I've seen nearly nothing of the content. There's just so much stuff to do and an insane amount of unlockables and secrets to discover.
(Edit: It took me 269 hours to finish everything and getting every item at least once. Oh boy, that was an experience full of hate and love. Definitely an emotional rollercoaster. The Lost vs. Mega Satan. Nope. Won't do this again...)

The games' concept consists of random dungeons and items, a hard difficulty with permanent death and many secrets that players will stumble upon on their journey through little Isaac's basement.
These aspects can be found in many other games as well, however here all of it is being combined so extremly well that it creates a game in what everything fits together perfectly. There are several characters with different stats and starting items, a ton of items, trinkets and stuff that can be found and unlocked (with their synergies they decide the run as they either make you a looser or a superhero), dozens of different room types and areas, lots of creepy enemies, bosses and many traps and secrets.

In addition most of the content is only unlocked after playing through the game multiple times. Then it's possible that the former endboss isn't the real endboss anymore and that you can access even more areas after its death. Moreover there are also special challenges, a hard mode, different endings and stuff like e.g. curses that randomly appear during a game and make everything even more uncomfortable for our little 'hero'.
In 'The Binding of Isaac' every run you do really feels unique and that is what I really love about the game: It never feels repetitive.
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In addition I like the concept and style that is somewhere between a freaky horror version of a child's book and the insane nightmare of a mad man - just in the super cute version mixed with some creepy sounds.

The music is really catchy and the pixelated graphics are very well done, support the atmosphere and make the game seem even dirtier (for the pixel-haters: this filter can be turned off). The game is based around several names, items and stories from the bible and christianity and the main story is about a mother who wants to sacrifice her son to god.
I also have to admit that the intro sequence was quite interesting and I really liked all the subtle story hints. They are like different puzzle pieces that fit together and every run adds another element to the whole picture.
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Talking about the negative points you definitely have to face one fact: some stuff of the game can be an instant turn-off for people. The 'cute but gory ickyness' of the game is definitely very special.
And it's really hard. Okay it's a rogue-like, they tend to be hard, but even for their standards this game is a tough cookie. Even more if you plan on getting all the achievements. However I don't really care about this, I just start my character, hope for some good items, get wrecked on a boss (or a regular enemy/fire/needles...) and then I just start over. And all the time it gets a bit easier as you understand the enemies, items and the boss' movements (don't worry you'll still die a lot though...).
(Well, in the end I cared about the achievements and spent way more hours in this game than I would have ever though...)
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So all in all I can definitely recommend this game. From my point of every part of it fits together perfectly and the game provides a ton of fun. The new DLC 'Afterbirth' adds even more enemies, items, synergies and modes to the main game, boosting the time for unlocking everything to insane heights. There is enough stuff to do for several hundred of hours. If you don't mind the 'weird' style and the special humour the game is definitely at least a 9 out of 10.

And let us be honest: 'The Binding of Isaac' is the only game where it's at least kind of okay to scream things like:

'YES, I got cancer!!!'
or
'Sweet I found an injection with green looking acid! Now my tears are green and melt through poop, bones and these headless freaks!'
or
'Great, this pile of sh*t dropped a lunch and some hearts!'

...but probably it would be better NOT to call out loud the names of all the items you get. Sentences like 'I got a...

Headless Baby
The head of my Dead Cat
Bob's Bladder
Stem Cells
(...)
now I can kill my mother!!! Die, die, die! *insert insane laugh here*'

...could end with some pretty freaked out people calling the police and you spending the night in a dirty little cell. Well, it may at least have a trap door and a basement...

Geralt of Rivia
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Despite his words Geralt's second adventure won't keep him out of political business, as he will stumble right into political affairs, intrigues, rebellions and mysterious murders. 'Assassins of Kings' takes place after the events of the first game and throws the player into a dark, cruel and mature fantasy world full of morally ambigious (but nonetheless remarkable) characters, political disputes and an insane amount of names, lore and history.
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The game's story is amazing and full of twists and remarkable events that will entertain you for a long time. Main and sidequests are very well written, diversified and more than just once the player has to make decisions where the difference between 'good' and 'bad' isn't that obvious. Geralt's journey will bring him to different cities, realms and areas and there are many things to do for the White Wolf. Sure it's no 'Open World'-game but the locations still offer huge areas to explore, that are full of monsters, characters, hidden secrets and forgotten treasures. Besides the synchronisation is all the time on a high level (even in german!) and despite its age of over four years the visuals are still absolutely gorgeous.

I have spent over 40 hours on my first run on hard mode but afterwards I instantly started a second one due to the fact that the choices you make can create completely different adventures and often questlines, areas and outcomes change entirely. So far I've played it for over 70 hours and I've never been bored.
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Sure the game isn't perfect. Some negative points would be that the difficulty changes between 'Geralt is Superman' and 'everyone else is Superman' (which leads to some pretty annoying situations), the fighting system is just average (...and definitly not a very strong point here), I had several CTDs and unfortunately the saving system is kind of annoying, because every save creates a new seperate data and the more data the longer some loading periods will be. As a 'frequent-saver' I had to clean out a lot...
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...but this is complaining on a very high level and all in all I can say that this is one of my favourite RPGs. It provides an amazing storyline with great lore and characters in a morally ambigious dark fantasy world that's far away from your typical stereotypes. And all this is backed up by one of the best protagonists of all time: the legendary white wolf, Geralt of Rivia.

Every RPG-fan who skips this game will definitely miss something!
(...and if only because you can import your finished savegame to the Witcher III).

'Ladies and gentleman, welcome aboard the feels train. Todays destination will be: the Moon!'

Okay let's be honest: the gameplay of 'To the Moon' is quite boring, it's repetitive and often more annoying than entertaining. It's not the typical 'Fighting & Fantasy'-RPG-Maker game but a strictly linear adventure whichsets its focus on the story about an old man and his dying wish. Sure, there are minigames and some 'better' levels, but after the fifth time collecting some memory links to go on to the next level I just thought 'C'mon just skip this, I don't want to do this agai-... great another memory link level'. But I still recommend this game - without any doubts - to everyone who enjoys a good story.

You ask why? It'S true, for me 'To the Moon' is an 'average' game at best, but at the same time it's a fantastic 'movie' with an interesting story backed up by an amazing soundtrack, well-written dialogues, interesting characters and an atmosphere that makes up for many flaws. I really enjoyed the plot and the great dialogues between the characters and you can definitly see how much time the developers used to make every scene create the right emotional situation. And - at least in my case - they succeeded.

Ok, let's be honest: I bought this game for 0,19€ and thought it would be 'okay' for a couple of minutes, I'd grab the cards and then it would disappear in the library, never to be looked at again. After the first 20 minutes I had to admit that the game is quite entertaining and after seeing the ending I didn't even notice that I've played it for over an hour.

Sure the (retro-style) pixel graphics and the 16-bit sound seem to be standard for every second indie game, but in 'Out There Somewhere' they do their job quite good, they made me feel a bit nostalgic and are very charming (I really like this music in the main menu). The portal gun and the different puzzles are well done and I seriously had to think sometimes how to solve this room. Green, red and blue light beams, jumping, momentum - there are several things to consider when shooting that little bullet.

Yeah it is a short game with a short 'story' (the bad guy shoots at me, my ship crashes and I have to explore the planet to finally kill the bad guy. All of this because of... reasons!) and a length of approximately one hour for the first playthrough. However during this short period I've been entertained well and it never felt repetitive. In addition there are many interesting achievements that bring in some replay value, so I'd say it's definitly worth this small price and I have to admit: Developers, you've done a really nice job!

A lovely game with amazing visuals, design and artwork. It's all about the white-haired kid, a bastion and a destructed world. The levels are interesting and invite to explore, there are many different weapons and special skills for our 'lil kid and it has a lot of replay value due to a ng+, a score system and two different endings.

All in all it's a great little action-rpg with an easy but well done fighting system, a catchy story and some of the best soundtracks and voice actings I've ever heard in a videogame (seriously the narrator voice is brilliant!) - it can definitely be recommended without hesitation!

The art, the style, the narrator voice and soundtrack in combination ... let's describe it with an ingame quote: "OK, now that's just plain overkill. I mean, come on."