Recent reviews by SirNinja

An excellent and useful utility for anyone who wants more frames from their games, Lossless Scaling can inject a wide variety of upscaling methods into just about any windowed application, including AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 (FSR) or nVidia's Image Scaling (NIS). Other popular algorithms like Anime4K and xBR are also included, and all work very well.

While there are a few free alternatives to this program, there's a very good reason to put down some cash for this one. Lossless Scaling includes a proprietary upscaler of its own, called LS1 — and it's incredible. It is everything FSR 1.0 tried to be, but much more accurate, especially when it comes to properly scaling things like text (or anything "small" with cornered edges; where FSR tends to produce a very muddy result). It even comes with a "Performance" option, and honestly I can't even tell the difference between the two 99% of the time.

Using Lossless Scaling couldn't be simpler. Pick your upscaler, press Ctrl+Alt+S (customizable; you can also click a button with a delay timer), and that's that; you're all scaled up. It also supports profiles: you can tie a specific set of settings to a particular executable, and have LS automatically apply those settings to that application: either as soon as it runs, or with a delay. It's great for some older games who don't handle alt-tabbing well (or windowed mode in general).

I've used LS for well over 2,000 hours, and tested it on a large variety of games. I have a 4K monitor; my usual method is to run a game windowed at 1440p, and then upscale from there (and usually with LS1. The algorithm is seriously phenomenal; almost all games look like they're native res). In addition to that, it's a great way to upscale older games whose HUDs don't increase with resolution.

Though thankfully many games today include great upscalers natively (FSR2+, DLSS, XeSS), Lossless Scaling is there for everything else. Put your games in windowed mode, run this thing, and enjoy the extra FPS.


EDIT: LS now includes optional frame-generation! While early, the feature is very promising, especially on games locked to 60 fps. Will update with further info after testing more.

The procedural universe-exploration game that keeps on giving. Originally infamously falling far short of its promises at launch, it's been updated with some thirteen expansion packs and counting — all for free — and now has far, far more features than even what was initially teased. Almost five years later, there's still no end in sight to the content updates.

It's also one of the best VR games out there, despite VR not even being on the developer's radar for the game initially.

[Fuller review coming soon; this was mostly for the Steam Awards Fall Sale badge. But seriously: pick this game up if you haven't.]

Not worth it. The download is ridiculously big, load times are increased 2x-4x across the board, and texture quality is only marginally increased in most cases. Some textures still look very low-res.

If you have an immense SSD, a beastly video card, a monitor whose res is at least 1440p, and you're a big fan of this game, then, and only then...actually, no, it's still better to just download some optimized/hi-res texture mods.

(For those of you wondering whether this is a version of Human Revolution with Montreal and/or Upper Hengsha city hubs: sorry, this isn't it. At this point, I doubt it'll ever come our way, at least barring a "Super Director's Cut" edition. Don't be waiting for it.)

The DE:HR Director's Cut integrates The Missing Link, a previously standalone story, into the original game, and adds in a New Game Plus mode which carries over all abilities (but no items, sadly) from a completed playthrough. Some preorder-bonus missions are also added in, but the best addition here is a stellar commentary from the biggest names behind the game. Seriously - give it a listen. There's a ton of it (about 8 hours total), but quite a bit of it is insightful and interesting. A new gold standard for commentary in video games (sorry Valve).

Newcomers: this is an absolute steal for twenty bucks. A playthrough of the Director's Cut will take you anywhere from 35-60 hours, depending on how much you see and do, and it's just a flat-out great game besides. The art direction, soundtrack, and story are first-rate, as are the scenarios that accommodate a range of playstyles the Deus Ex universe is renowned for supporting. Whether you try to sneak, hack, or shoot your way through this universe, it's a good time.

I'm fairly certain no one outside Ubisoft saw this game coming when discussions of a Far Cry 3 expansion were making the rounds, but developers absolutely need to be encouraged to make more offshoot experiences like it. Blood Dragon is a standalone title which takes everything that was cheesy, campy, ridiculous, and hilarious about 80s action/sci-fi B movies and packs it all into a big open-world island full of cyber-soldiers and laser-shooting dinosaurs. The storyline and characters are perfectly hammy and over-the-top, the graphics are appropriately lurid, the synth-filled soundtrack is note-perfect, and it's funny as hell. You don't need (or need to be familiar with) Far Cry 3 to play it, and it won't make a dent in your wallet either. The lack of mission replay is one of the only bad things I can say about it. Get it and play it; if you're at all familiar with the craziest the 80s had to offer, you'll have a big dumb grin on your face the whole way through.

I can't even begin to estimate how much time in middle school I spent with this one. I remember taking the CD of this game over to friends' houses, where we'd team up against the computer in the most outlandish scenarios we could think of. Yes, we'd sometimes kill half our own team with an extremely poorly-planned super banana bomb, but we didn't care. In this game, the hilarity of mistakes outclassed even the feeling of finally throwing that perfect grenade. It was stupid, perfect fun no matter what happened.

Don't just get Armageddon for the nostalgia value, though. Get it because it's still as great as it was in 1999. Get because it's still being patched and has a big community behind it even today. Get it because there hasn't been a greater Worms game since.

An awesome hybrid of two addictive genres. Very fun, and gloriously exploitable.

Also, follow the link below if you want the expansion pack! I ported it over from the 360 version, and added quite a bit of UI improvements and bugfixes. Check it out:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2750283

If ever there was a free game worth paying money for, it's this one.

Be sure to set it so it uses the original soundtrack, though.

"The truth of the matter is...the game was rigged from the start."

Created by many of the people behind the first two Fallout games and building upon the ambitious foundation of the third, New Vegas is arguably the quintessential Fallout experience. The story (and endings) of this massive RPG will vary greatly depending on the factions you side with, the companions you recruit, and the sidequests you complete. New Vegas also brings back a lot of the dark humor the post-apocalyptic series was (in?)famous for, along with many other tributes to the series's past. Should you ever run out of things to do in the gigantic Mojave Wasteland, there's a crazy amount of mods for it at sites like New Vegas Nexus, and a lot of quality DLC that takes the game in unexpected and interesting directions. Buy it, play it, beat it, mod the hell out of it, and play it again.

The Daggerfall of racing games, Fuel gives you a ludicrously huge open world (5,500 square miles; about the size of Connecticut) to drive around in. Severe weather (up to and including tornadoes) and offroad shortcuts (especially in point-A-to-point-B races) play a big part in many events. If that's not your cup of tea, then you can always just mess around finding stuff on the open road. I reccomend turning the music off and just driving in one direction; the experience is surprisingly unique. It's not the best PC port (why does it always seem like it's running in a lower resolution than what it's set at?), but if you've ever played a racer where you wanted to drive around in the scenery as much as the track itself, give Fuel a try.