Recent reviews by texashead

Good

As survival games go, Rust is pretty standard. Open-world exploration, base building, PvP and PvE, with other worldly dangers to worry about. There are some pretty neat features in Rust, however, that make the game stand out from some other entries in the genre.

First of all, I'm going to discuss how difficult Rust can be. Often, and especially on official servers, other people will be geared up, and most people practice a kill-on-sight attitude, regardless of your danger to them. In a game like this, where you spawn with absolutely nothing, getting shot at like that can be painful.

Second, I'm going to talk about the performance. It's difficult for me to run the game (Core2 Quad, GTX660) on low settings, but my friends (with a 970 and another with 970 SLI) have no trouble and hit 60+ FPS in all areas. It helps to turn down render distances, and turning down settings dependent on location (outdoors, indoors, etc.) can help, as there are multiple levels of quality for different areas of video settings.

Third will be some gameplay. I think, where Rust differs from other survival games, is a) the interesting character generation, b) the recipe discovery, and c) the atmosphere.

Ahh, character generation. If you've already played Rust, you've probably realized that you spawn completely naked. I believe it's censored by default, but what fun is that? ;) The character is generated in a way that you are given a gender, and based on that gender you are generated that gender's genitalia, and the sizes are pretty much randomized. So yes, you can compare virtual♥♥♥♥♥♥♥with your friends.
Recipe discovery is pretty interesting in Rust. If you've ever played H1Z1, you probably know that you discover recipes by throwing random junk into a discovery window and hope that you can make what you were hoping to discover. Rust, on the other hand, is a little bit different. You find fragments of blueprints on the map, and combine them into larger blueprints to in turn discover recipes.
The atmosphere of Rust is really unique. A lot of games have obvious backgrounds. Once again, using H1Z1, you can tell what happened: the H1Z1 virus came up and killed 99.99% of people and they became zombies. With Rust, however, it's confusing. It takes place in an apocalyptic stage, of course, but you can tell it's modern due to the presence of nuclear reactors and firearms. Speaking of firearms, they lend to the atmosphere. They're mostly makeshift, with parts from household items attached to build the body of the various guns in the game. It gives the game a vibe like Mad Max. Another thing: there are airdrops from big C-130-type planes and even map-wide attacks via Blackhawk helicopters. Why this occurs, nobody can say for sure, but it's eerie that these machines operate in the apocalypse like that.

Overall, Rust is a somewhat different experience from other survival games, expecially open-world ones. It's not particularly expensive, and it has a great developer working on it. There are updates almost every week, including updates inspired by community wants and needs. The game's unique atmosphere, endless playability, and this great community-developer connection make it a great buy.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut (DXHR) is a first-person cyberpunk stealth action RPG, which takes place in the mid-2020s. You fill the role of Adam Jensen, the recently-hired head of security at Sarif Industries in Detroit. One of the company's scientists, Dr. Megan Reed, is soon to present some research regarding human augmentation and enhancement to politicians in Washington, DC. Shortly before leaving, however, a highly-trained and highly-augmented black ops team infiltrates Sarif Industries and kills the scientists on Dr. Reed's team, including Megan herself. Adam Jensen, in a futile effort to intervene, is mortally wounded. The only way to save him is to augment him. Six months after the attack, Jensen is called back in to action to deal with another attack, this time on a Sarif plant. There's a missing piece in this attack, and this leads Adam Jensen to hunt down it down and find the truth behind the attack on Dr. Megan Reed's team.


DXHR was a really enjoyable experience for me, I've got to say. First of all, I'm a pretty big fan of futuristic games, and this game's take on the next step in the evolution of man is really interesting. It shows both the good and the bad parts of the idea of human enhancement technology. While our world has yet to advance beyond simpler prosthetic technology, DXHR is a sort of eye-opener for our future.

Anyway, I'm going to actually talk about what I liked about the game. DXHR is really open-ended, first of all. As I said above, it's a stealth game, but it's also an action game. You can literally play the entire game without killing a single person, with the exception of bosses. I personally used a mixed playstyle, attempting to sneak around when I saw the opportunity, and resorted to using my projectile weapons when I was either discovered or had no other way through. Another thing I liked was the hub-style level structure. Between major missions, you stroll around city hubs, sometimes picking up side quests and finding little secret rooms or stashes. Doing these side quests helps a lot with leveling up your character, which is also pretty interesting. Adam's augmentations need to be unlocked over time, and they're all really interesting. My personal favorite augmentations are the three-meter-high jump and the punch-through-wall one. They're a lot of fun.

I did love playing this game, but it's not perfect. The dialogue is really kind of boring, giving you a maximum of four dialogue options, where other games will offer more. Sometimes, having so many options to get around is kind of unnecessary, because you may be offered to hack the lock on a door, but there's a vent you can open to get past it in one-tenth the time. Oh, yeah, and hacking. I know, I know, it's technically a mini-game, but still, it could be better.

Steam Integration:
DXHR features Steam achievements and Steam trading cards, so you can craft badges and show off to your buddies when you get those secret achievements. Achievements which I can tell you absolutely nothing about because I'm pretty sure I have none of them.

Playtime and New Game+:
When I wasn't playing Counter-Strike with my friends, I was able to play this game and get what I feel is the full experience, all in about 28 hours. That's fairly short, I suppose, for a game, but when you consider that 95 percent of that playtime did NOT consist of trying to find hundreds of random collectibles, I'd say it's a pretty good amount of time. And then, after you're done, you can start a "New Game+" where you carry over your character's abilities, which can unlock a lot more possibilities in the early game.

Pros
You can play the game however you want: guns blazing, sneaky-beaky, or both.
The character leveling is very balanced and you actually have a hard time choosing upgrades because they're all pretty awesome.
The story is pretty good, and there are a lot of side quests to keep the in-game downtime feeling like uptime.
Trading Cards are dropped occasionally.

Cons
The dialogue system isn't great. It feels very limited and linear at times.
Adam Jensen isn't a very dynamic character. Kind of unlikable, in fact, which is bad since you HAVE to be him.
Gah! The ending is nerve-wracking. Reminds me of Mass Effect 3, if you know what I'm talking about.

Final Thoughts:
Despite some of its shortcomings, Deus Ex: Human Revolution shines and isn't afraid to challenge you as a player. After playing this, I'm super excited to see what Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has in store for us next month. Let's hope that Eidos and Square Enix will deliver again! In the meantime, try to pick up DXHR on sale (I got it for about five dollars) and play it; you won't regret it!

Rating: 9.6/10

Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 (CMS 15) is exactly what is sounds like: a car mechanic simulator. The player takes the role of a mechanic in your very own garage. As you build up a good reputation and learn more, you get to work on harder, more complex vehicles. You are given hints early on to help you determine exactly what parts to fix or replace, but soon those nice yellow outlines will disappear, and you're on your own. Cars get nicer, and so do your payouts.


Car Mechanic Sim is all I hoped it to be. I wanted to learn more about how cars come together, and it did the job perfectly for me. While it's not completley accurate simulation, the game does a good job of giving you the basics of how a car works. Before playing CMS15, I wouldn't have known how suspension even works in cars. I really like working on older cars, such as muscle cars and other little classic cars, because of how different they are from modern designs, especially the engines and the suspension setups.
Pros
Good basic learning tool
Lots of inexpensive DLCs to expand the gameplay (licensed brands, tuning options)
Good array of cars parodied from real-world vehicles.

Cons
Not a full car simulation! It's a mechanic sim!
Gets progressively more difficult (could be interpreted either way really, just putting it in the cons because it has more weight as a con)
The gameplay is a bit repetitive after a while. You may like to try the challenge mode to mix things up a bit!

Final Thoughts:
CMS is a good way to pass time and learn something while doing it!

Rating: 420/10

Tried to play three times, the game then turned my monitor off 3 times, forcing me to hard reset. When I finally got in I was greeted by an interesting ui, some classes that seem awfully familiar to another futuristic fps, then I got into a TDM. Waited, shot some people, jumped on walls, felt like plain old cod. Then it crashed my computer again, uninstalled.

This is a really cool game. I really like the parkour, however it can make things a little too easy. If you are on the ground there are zombies everywhere, and they pose little threat alone. In groups they will do some damage. At night things get really interesting, and if you are discovered you basically can't stop or you will die. The open world is fun, and there are many different vantage points that show off the beautiful graphics, which are very nicely done. The weapons/crafting system is nice, because you can find parts in the world and make weapons, you can also get perks to upgrade your weapons. The skill/perk system is great. As you perform the task you will get a point in a category which you can spend to get a perk. Great game.

I bought this game a long time ago, right around when it came out. I was so excited and it seemed like a lot of fun for a while. However, as time passed the devs slowly started to care less and less. Eventually it became the pile of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that it is today and it honestly just isn'tm fun anymore. I have a lot of good memories on this game, and it sucks that it turned out the way it did, but honestly at this point it isn't even worth the money.