Recent reviews by sock

Greatest remake/remaster of all time

Weirdly designed, constant droning 5-second loop of piano music in the background, the physics are somehow both too heavy and too floaty at the same time.

Bad, even with friends.

Modding only benefits games. Don't be stupid, Rockstar.

Great port, runs beautifully, the game is and always has been one of the best action games of all time.

The only few nitpicks I have are that 21:9 is listed in the resolution settings, but doesn't work right now, and the AA seems a little off.

Minor nitpicks though to a great port for a really wonderful game. Hope to see more Platinum games on PC in the future!

If you like long, story-driven RPGs, surprisingly well-written dialogue, and have any interest in games, you owe it to yourself to play this.

It runs well, supports ethical developers, and is beyond gorgeous. Play it.

A "Best of" Souls game that re-lives the better moments of previous Souls games.

+Great gameplay
+Combat is the best it's ever been
+Huge world, lots of detail

-Not hugely optimized
-Missing many texture options (sorry 21:9 brothers)
-Re-does lots of previous Souls ideas

Overall, it's my favorite Souls game (I've played each for more than ~200 hours).
Hopefully the DLC adds some more diversity and challenge, but as it stands it's a really good game.

As somone who played and quite enjoyed both of the Amnesia games (and one of the Penumbra games), I was excited to jump in and see what this new game was all about.

I beat it over the course of a few days and took a few more to mull over my thoughts about the whole thing.

Mechanically, the game is very different from previous Frictional games. There is no 'inventory' in this game, as well as no lantern or insanity meter. What takes the place of those things is fairly regular interaction with monitors and computer systems. Whether trying to unlock a room with a necessary item in it or read the journal of NPC's, you spend a lot of time in front of virtual computer screens. And while they don't fill the immersive roles of frantically trying to avoid running out of lantern oil, they serve their purpose well and really help to flesh out this dystopian future that the game takes place in.

Story-wise, this game is leagues ahead of both Penumbra and Amnesia. It tackles so many difficult subjects, ranging from what it means to be human to the subjectivity of our perception, and does it all in a surpremely well-written story. If you've played a Frictional game before, you know what lies in store for you. Deep, dark, depressing story arcs that often raise really interesting philosophical questions, and it stays the same here. Without spoiling it, the story had me ranging in emotions from fear, joy, suspense, and by the end depression. The story (and it's finale) really make you think about what makes life worth living and what makes 'life' even is. It's good stuff.

While I've been kind of sucking this game's ♥♥♥♥ for the last few paragraphs, there are some real problems that I have with it that should be addressed:

-wonky AI
-very little use of the physics engine
-some enemy designs could be better (though some are really quite good)

-this annoying thing that blurs your vision when you take a hit from an enemy until you find a new health restore point. This may sound small, but when the AI tends to be a little weird and the puzzles more methodical, you tend to take hits from enemies more frequently than previous games. This meant (personally) that I spent probably a fifth of the game with blurried vision, which not only gave me a massive headache, also made it substantially more difficult to see the environment and solve the puzzles. This is probably my biggest problem with the game overall. (which speaks well of the game as a whole)


Overall, I would absolutely recommend this game if you like dark, depressing, well-written stories, horror, sci-fi, or ever just wondered what a spookier Bioshock would be like.

A game about Capitolism thats FREE?
Sounds like Communism to me.


Honestly though, it's a pretty good game.
The comparison to be made is to Cookie Clicker (the web game),
but Adventure Capitolist fares a lot better in the mid-to-late game.
There are mechanics built into the game to make the game last for a long time, and it's nice that there are achievements to incentivise long-term play.

You can't go wrong with a free game, so I would definitely suggest it.

For a game that certainly tries to be Dark Souls, Lords of the Fallen is a good example of why a game like Dark Souls is to hard to pull off. There are so many small things that this game does worse than the former, and it makes the entire thing feel much worse for it.

First, the camera is like being followed by a helicopter with Parkinson's disease. It goes from uncomfortably shaky in large, open areas, to almost laughably ridiculous in smaller, tighter spaces.

Second, the combat. While a game like Dark Souls is more punishing than trying to fist a bear, it was always...ALWAYS fair. I can count on one hand the amount of times I died in Dark Souls and felt it wasn't completely my fault. In Lords of the Fallen, however, I died a dozen times in just the first area, and while I initially chalked it up to my learning the mechanics of the game, it soon became clear that this game is much, much harsher and even less fair when it comes to combat.

While the idea of a bulkier, heavier Dark Souls sounds like an awesome game, this is not that game. It all looks very pretty, but it fails to live up to the standards of the game it so obviously is trying to be. This game is trying to stand on the shoulders of a giant like the Souls series, only to realize that it has no legs.

This can all be summed up in an experience I had while trying to fight the second boss of the game. After dying maybe ten, fifteen times to the thing, I finally endured the nearly half-hour boss fight, had finally withered it down to the last fractions of it's health...and the game crashed on me.

2/10

Would not buy again

(also, it bears mentioning that game difficulty itself is not an issue for me [please refer to the 200 hours I've spent on Dark Souls], it is when a game is difficult without also being fair that I take issue)

This game has literally given my life meaning again. If you don't buy this, you are doing yourself an injustice.