Recent reviews by no1

immersive

the devs (from) read berserk and were inspired to make a series of (souls) games
from (correctly) assumes gamers are stupid masochists

elden ring is a visual feast. an aesthetic statement.

user inputs are basic and produce basic output

combat feels solid but lacking in depth. the burden of complexity falls on the bosses, whose mechanics are a thousand times more exciting than anything a player can produce. i am a veteran of mmorpg pvp which is a dance of a million flourishes.
the amount of keybinds that requires isn't viable on controllers.
there's undeniably skill involved in elden ring.
i would say the game demands a high level of skill.
however there is very little room for creativity. most of gameplay is avoiding damage, from there are few paths to retaliation.
it is sad to me considering how fantastical the setting is that the magic / sorcerer / astrologer class is the least complicated.
when in kmmorpg i used a good 3/8 a full sized keyboard keyboard and then 3 mouse buttons for all my binds. each bind had a cooldown i kept track of. i just thought of a metaphor...that has implications...
typing. elden ring damage dealing is like typing with morse code.
tera's (kmmorpg) array of abilities is like typing with a fullsized keyboard. although i don't really use the shift key bc i am ego suffering...
somewhere in the future there will be a combat system similar to a courtroom stenographer with combinatory inputs...like chords on a piano.
bdo (black desert online) implements something like this but the binds are trash and not very customizable.
tera's default binds were unuseable and because i was a pvper i kept my bindings private instead of creating a tutorial...partially because personal preference is a key factor and memorization is also important...if you've been playing the game to lvl cap with your binds keep em.

my first character was a confessor. dogwater class. terrible choice for a beginner. mostly because the confessor incantations are horribly implemented by the developers. i would've been happy with a slow HoT (heh i used shift, heal over time) that is roughly equivalent to a pot (balanced by the fact that although casting is near instant it would take 15 seconds to regen the HP meaning the next love tap from the boss could prove fatal). instead i get a healing skill that casts slow and is less powerful than a pot. bc they balanced game around making survival difficult instead of yk, common sense or what would make for pleasant gameplay.
i rerolled to sorc and despite being bored out of my skull (i actually have physical braindmg rn so idk if i could perfom 1/10th of my prime / peak sorc) ... everything was so much easier. i did some reading on the wiki bc i had already compromised my immersion & discovered i could kill a peaceful npc who was already doomed for a better staff. the world in this game is truly special and i felt guilty until thop killed me 20 times muttering 'why on earth' as 'you died' displayed across my screen
hello this realm isn't earth. maybe dialogue establishes a canonical link to w/e dimension this game takes place in (i forgor #braindmg) & planet Earth. anyways i ended up thop by dealing dmg to him then hiding behind a pillar. initially i was almost raging bc the camera stops locking onto targets if u hide for too long...but this ended up leading to the discovery that if u hide long enuff the npc gets adhd / short term memory loss & i (the player) can surprise attack them again.

the reason i recommend this game is bc i am in my antisocial arch
i see the way the game treats the player and find it amusing that 12 million ppl bought into it. myself included. i probably wont ever finish it unless one day i become a well renowned streamer who needs to be humbled / publicly humiliated.

this is probably the best setting of any videogame ever...the more i think about it...it could certainly have more depth / scale to the systems tho. its art style is very naturalistic but im nitpicking how easy it is to see behind the cutrain / facade.

i love fighting the berserk-esque / lovecraftian monsters.

i also just caught some angel egg vibes.

apparently george rr martin was involved in writing the backstory...with the main story already written...that makes sense because that ol writer of GoT definitely couldnt have written the influences / vibes im pickin up on.

a lot of influences:
archeage
eso
tera
dark souls (aesthetic / combat style)
runecape (crafting i guess)
i was even reminded of silkroad as i lured / aggro'd mobs
one of the unique things of this game i enjoyed was the openness, in most mmos everywhere outside of cities is overrun with (hostile) mobs. not bdo. i enjoyed climbing mountains and mining.

flaws of this game include
trying to do too much without making progressing the genre at all (silkroad was phenomenal because of its simplicity)
trying to force me to kill peaceful tree spirits in the main quest
keybinds aren't very customizeable
no p2p trading (i guess this is to solve issues with manipulating economy)
artifiical progression skipping opening and midgame...that i missed out on because of my uwillingness to kill innocent tree spirits

pros:
combos are kinda fun
visually pleasing world
detailed enviornment where everything feels explorable
no fast travel in a world with magic n things (idk maybe it's unlocked later)
endgame combat could be good
there apears to be a wide variety of things to do.

gooddam i miss tera. now that i think about it tho.the tutorial crash had me slaughtering innocent bucks (male deer ig they werent so inncent after all heh)...

this game had potential but i feel like it's too much of a timesink. endgame combat is likely the type of trash that ruined tera b4 it died. if you're NEET and haven't experienced a korean mmo...this could ruin your life. but if you need something to keep you tethered to a (digital) reality it might be worth it.

tera is unbeatable. maybe try rocket league. it's very different but has a similar skill ceiling.

giving this game a thumbs up because it's chill.

spent 2 hours rerolling arms dealer for a sniper rifle upgrade. check their inventory, save & quit, respawn at town center, run route, and repeat. 12 tries in was the closest i'd get @ lvl 17 i rolled a 260 base dmg rifle with +120% crit dmg...but it was burst fire which cannot be toggled in this game. it might've been useful against bosses if they had large areas to crit...but overall it's worse because you're gonna waste ammo and the shots after the first get less accurate. at an hour and 45 minutes i saw a blue tier rifle with 120% crit dmg increase and no burst. but it had the most dogwater damage roll...180...i am a massive idiot with a massive headache from playing this game. i recommend avoiding it at all costs. it's an enjoyable classic rpg format which is what makes it dangerous. the story is entertaining but overall it drained so much of my will to continue living it's insane.

the one positive takeaway is that i have regained confidence in my ability to aim. played some battlebit and was only able to shoot well when i was focused / in flow state, otherwise wasn't very consistent. something about shooting robots in this game put me into ultra instinct and i was hitting targets like i could as a kid. flick shots etc.

so i guess my impression of the game is neutral but i will be uninstalling for the sake of my mental. gotta balance the overwhelmingly positive with some unc negativity. i avoided this game when it came out but i'm sure if i'd tried to like it back then i would've.

but yeah i'm sticking with the negative review bc rng bad. i would've liked to have cheesed the rng. i feel like rng should be cheesable if it's gonna be there. i feel like i punished myself by attempting to do some casual cheesing. rngjesus was not pleased. anyways. i have played korean mmos that were much much more punishing and rng-centric. but they were multiplayer and there was prestige involved. this game is casual.

also had an immersion breaking glitch towards the beginning that lead to my first death. got stuck after opening a locker. there's no unstuck command, go figure. the solution (saving & reloading) sent me all the way back to the beginning of the level practically (15 minutes back).

so yeah in terms of progress i got further in this game than more than half of its players, and my rarest achievement has ~20% of ppl getting it

bend the rules
change your system clock
use the JS console once you unlock the building
use it to automate the stock market
use it to autocast spell combos

A shooting game where I didn't have to shoot humans.

Made it to rank 69 in like a week idk. Shooting games are unhealthy. I use this to vent. 1 KD. When I was feeling it I got up to 2-3 KD on RogueSoldiers HC server. Then I went outside, touched synthetic grass (turf soccer) and played again. I got rolled. The takeaway: living life makes you worse at FPS, because reality doesn't revolve around death and destruction. I didn't even know how to zero my sights until I looked up if it was possible. Missed the part of the tutorial that mentioned it. Chambering rounds doesn't add to the total. I tested this painfully with an extended magazine glock. Emptied it completely, loaded a magazine counted 24 shots. Then I reloaded again. If there are 24 cartridges in a magazine and one in the chamber I should 25 shots. I only had 24. I counted to 24 like 5x double checking this oversight. Reloading before emptying the chamber is faster as the animation for racking the slide only done when completely dry. Technically irl the wep would still be fireable with a chambered round even in the middle of reloading. BF3 and BF4 had this feature. Needs a battle royale mode to be relevant in a post PUBG landscape. I played this for the nostalgia not to get addicted.

No shotguns. I timed the soldier you play as running 400m in 57 seconds (pistol equipped as that's faster) which is excellent considering the armor and 50 cal sniper rifle (idk if its actually 50 cal, it was the 2nd to last unlock) I was carrying at the time. Totally unburdened I ran a 53s 400m in high school which is pretty mid. I'd translate a 57 with a sniper rifle and full kit to a 48s. And there is no stamina system in this game so we're talking WR mile pace.There's unlimited "sprint" which is quite silly. The reload system of fast reload or tactical reload where you keep the partially emptied magazine could be applied to movement. Tapping shift toggles "run fast" which should be near unlimited. 5 minute mile pace. Holding shift should be explosive acceleration. While 57s is fast for a 400m, it's useless in combat. it's about 15s in the 100m. In combat 3 meters is life and death. A 12s 100m should be possible with a lighter kit (no sniper rifle) as that speed also scales to 200m. A 24s 200m wouldn't be possible for most gamers, but assuming this is a superwarrior, 11s 100m and 22s 200m should be feasible with adrenaline.

The spawn system needs reworking to make death more consequential. The way it works presently death is INCREDIBLY TACTICAL. Presently it's possible for the team winning the battle to lose objectives. Concerning yourself with staying alive means that you will stay behind cover and worry about line of sight and what is clear. Respawning shows you a map of the entire game and allows you to choose where you'd be needed the most. I've lost domination games where we wipe the other team, securing the central objective, then they immediately respawn and flank the shot out of us, stealing our previously secured objectives. we were so efficient and they still had sniper coverage so we were effectively pinned down not realizing that death is irrelevant based on how the game is balanced to allow instantaneous respawn with a bonus tactical overview. In my humble opinion (imho) there should be a 60s respawn timer on serious servers. Perhaps the game itself allows an arbitrary timeout and server hosts just don't set it higher than 2 seconds. If I were to balance this game I would set the minimum respawn timer to be 10 seconds. I'm rereading this and realizing I didn't even get into how OP being able to spawn out squadmates ahhs is. It means that from the opening zerg to mid, a team could have 2 players flank the map, then have their squadmates tactically unalive and reappear deep in "enemy territory" out of thin air with near 0 downtime. While this play hasn't likely been executed as a master plan I'm sure it naturally occurs thousands of times. A 10 second respawn timer and maybe flags getting pinged when an enemy spawns near them would mitigate the issue.

When players are knocked they should be killable still. Getting vaporized by C4 and then having a tm8 res through the wall is sorta cheap. To balance this maybe allow usage of sidearm & limited mobility as per other popular FPS titles. I get it's a casual title and all so really such lackluster gameplay is conducive to breaking ppl (and kids) free from this playground of chaotic annihilation...I digress. There are much more sweaty shooters out there. There are also much more cartoonish shooters out there. This is a nice middle ground.

My initial disappointment with the game was with the inability to cook grenades. They have an exceptionally long fuse. There's s____de c4 but the ability to overcook a nade would serve the same purpose. The impact grenades can't be bounced off walls to get around a corner. I've also heard the best way to increase chances of surviving a grenade is to a) run away b) dive into a prone position right before it detonates. a) might not be an option if it's properly cooked so it's best to just dive as soon as it lands. maybe a 20% damage reduction from grenades while prone would be a computationally cheap way to implement this.

Merging this game with warthunder would be insane. Maybe future wars could be decided by virtual combat. My idea about increasing sprint speed by like 33% (voodoo math) could ruin gameplay make latency a worse issue. In a LAN setting or ping < 20ms & 240 Hz server would be able to handle the increase. I've definitely died to lag even the way the game is presently paced.

fall damage is realistic-ish. would like to see a clutch mechanic similar to in mirror's edge and minecraft where you can time a press of spacebar to roll on impact and increase survivability. it's a videogame. potentially exploitable as hacked clients could have autoclutch.

So far so What a Save!

Humanity was a mistake and the way the administration of this game has treated me proves it.

gg

I'm having fun.

I predict I will stop having fun once my MMR reaches the point where I play against ppl who dedicate too much time to this game.

The UI is clunky and at times it not obvious. It's user friendly but its a forced friendliness.

Nice enough base game...the thing is that DLC is still sparse.

I'm writing this review after visiting the junkyard and I gotta say their prices are ridiculous. Supposing USD is worth double the the ingame currency they want 3k (USD) for car that isn't even worth fixing. A car that's been mostly stripped and every part still on it is below 30% condition.

Meanwhile IRL I can go find a running car for 1k on craigslist if I look long enough.

Edit: why do I need to pay 10k (5k USD) to expand my garage in order to get a work bench when half my garage is filled by a bus and boxes? Couldn't I at least park the bus outside to make space?
Why can't I use soap and water to wash cars? Why aren't there car washes I drive take cars to once they're running? Why do I need to spend 1.75k (875 USD) to build a car wash?

At this point I changed my review from positive to negative, here's why:

Ok I just shelled out 12.5k (ingame) for a body repair station and I can't even use it until I max the Renovator perk? 10k for the expansion and 2.5k for the body repair station, which has a fixed requirement of level 6 Renovator, despite not being clearly indicated on the purchase UI. It says "Renovator upgrade required" which I have, just not maxed, rather than saying "Your Renovator level is too low" and preventing the purchase by graying it out.

IRL, minor body repairs are some of the simplest fixes anyone can do on their car. Machining/fixing small parts would have a much greater threshold of impossibility, yet in CMS 21 the requirement seem much lower.

Last night I had some fun using a cheatcode to start with 500k and level 35. I guess I enjoyed resurrecting an imitation Mustang Fastback and building an engine for it, but there was nothing to do after so I went back into my uncheated career and encountered the above issue...

Qualifying this review as a bicycle mechanic and web designer/computer programmer.

I hate it more than when I first wrote this review but I've become addicted.