Recent reviews by Rattlesnark

Jank at every turn (even with the Unofficial Patch) and plenty of unfinished-feeling content, but decent vampire RPGs are few and far between - and this one still has its qualities and enjoyment.

Not bad for playing casually, perhaps still currently lacking in variety, polish, and balance to be worth the full time+effort investment. Coming from Apex Legends, this game was better than I'd expected (in terms of gunplay and movement). If you do try this game, bear in mind it's running Easy Anti Cheat which is notoriously weak in hacker deterrence - so expect to run into at least one every few games - primarily on the Asian server(s). Bring your friends.

For fans of The Elder Scrolls world and lore (like myself), this game is a feast with a countless amounts of sights to so and tidbits to learn. However, the gameplay and combat while not wholly number keys action bar oriented (like the more traditional MMOs a la WoW and FFXIV), still isn't immensely exciting. If you're not overly invested in TES, you'd probably want to give a free trial a go first and see if the gameplay is enjoyable.

If you'd like to play TES Online like a single-player game, it'll be somewhat manageable. As a solo player, I've not had a hard time at all doing all the main story content alone. For group stuff (mainly the 4 player dungeons), the Group Finder is finicky but passable.

It's a huge appeal for me personally that the game has no monthly subscription fee. Although without the premium subscription benefit of the material storage bag (and double bank storage), your pockets can get stuffed REALLY fast.

In short: If you're keen on the game being of The Elder Scrolls series but are unsure if you'd like the gameplay - wait for one of the free trials that they do run periodically. Or get the base game when it goes on the usual -75% sale.

(NOTE: I have about ~1000+ hours more on the non-Steam version.)

Only now, about 6 months after release, can I properly recommend this game, primarily because of the progression loss (money & weapons) bug that was absurdly prevalent before. There are still best-practice recommendations (i.e. do not get pulled into a match or exit the game while in the armory), but I've not had any of weapons and money loss so far with the latest patch - and I'm feeling somewhat more confident now. The new QoL and balance changes are also a welcome addition. It's a pretty fun and "L4D in VR" game now, recommend fans of the genre to give this a go for sure.

It's an "all right" game, but there's too much reliance on RNG towards the success of your run. From character perks (ascensions), weapon drops, to power-up scrolls, everything is dependent on luck of the draw. The characters themselves have specializations that would benefit only certain types of weapons, limiting what weapons you'll *need* to use on that run to succeed well. If you don't get a weapon of the type that has RNG stats rolls (which can range wildly from incredibly helpful to completely negligible).

The levels are split into 4 "chapters" of different biomes, but the levels themselves are pre-made and don't have too much variety to them. After a few runs, you'll be running through the same familiar hallways each time. The rewards for completing runs aren't very exciting/rewarding, and you can only increase the difficulty by 1 step after each completion.

The hardest Reincarnation difficulty scales from 1-8, and it begins with introducing a couple new shop vendors in the levels, but that's about it. The enemies scale in health and damage, and you'll run into some new somewhat-boring Elite enemy types, but the player's power scaling isn't given any noticeable boost. I was personally hoping for the game to throw more power-ups my way to give a sense of more immense power to face more immense opponents, but that wasn't the case. It's simply the same thing again and again with just a bit of linear scaling on the enemies.

There are also enemies in the game that are just plain not-fun to fight. Some that hide behind an unbreakable shield and turn to face you with 100% precision (a huge pain in solo mode), others with invulnerability frames and endless teleportation, sniper enemies with crazy long range enemies and insanely high damage (making close range builds a detriment). There are also enemies that you simply can't hit without long range capabilities (snipers on unreachable heights, bosses that are off-ways from where you can traverse, etc.). All this is especially un-fun when you're playing solo where you do not have second chances of getting a res when downed (I know it's a co-op game at its core, but it would be immense if it could be fun for solo players too).

But all in all, there's still some fun to it when playing with friends (and strictly with friends, as most of my grievances surfaced when I started trying out some solo runs). I would give this game a neutral rating if Steam had one.

The game that started it all for the genre. Gameplay and graphics simplicity from 1992, but you will not believe how addictive it is

I (foolishly) pre-ordered this game thinking if it launches poorly it will eventually turn-around for the better like BFV did. But there is zero sign of this happening AT ALL. Devs & the higher up suits have NOT ONCE mentioned accountability and desire to make up for it - only have been blaming players for their "brutal expectations". Patches have been put off again and again for the most basic of improvements (e.g. a damn scoreboard). Playerbase have dwindled to almost nothing, and the first "season" of live-service content updates have also been delayed with zero exciting news on it. The entire base gameplay mechanics and structures are unexciting and problematic, with zero chance that they'll ditch of it.

I've played for way too long now (62.7 hours) for a refund. There were some "OK-fun" moments but most of it was a slog and a lot of anger + cursing. At least CDPR offered refunds in some form. Give me my money back.

I enjoyed

Absolutely impressive fan-made creation. Great production quality all around (level design, voice acting, etc.) and very loyal to Portal's lore. Could very well consider this an "official" follow-up to Portal 2. Definitely play this if you enjoy Portal 1 and 2.

Very short game that's quite a fair homage to Valve's Portal games, with very similar visuals and narrative tone. Fans of Portal should give this a whirl for a fairly pleasant half-hour.