Recent reviews by Tr3m0r

Jedi Survivor is a relatively accessible "Souls Like" with challenging combat and the ability to lose progress if you die and are unable to return to where you drop your progress which is in the form of skill points for a skill tree. The skill tree is quite large and encompasses 4 different light saber stance buffs along with Jedi skills such as: Resilience, Telekinesis, Mind and Focus. All of the skills and stances are very unique and allow for a number of different builds and ways to approach the game. The stances are also very competent on their own and I found all of them fun to use.

Tip: Having trouble with bosses and especially the final bosses? Try using the Single blade and blaster both upgraded as much as you can. It's worth a respec and will make boss encounters EASY mode. I don't see this in many tips and this isn't a meta build but flat out works!

The story is engaging, especially the further you go into the campaign and you can tell this was a very high production game. However, the performance is just awful. While there is truth that many issues are contingent on the player configurations, this game just doesn't work well for MOST people. I have tested this game on 3 different high end systems and I have never had a good experience. I finished the game and I think the game is good so I am giving it a positive review. However it's as hesitant of a positive that I would give.

I have high end systems that were able to muscle through the game and perhaps, if my systems were lower end and had more severe problems, I'd likely have not finished the game. Controller support varies from acceptable to not recognizing the inputs very often. Ray Tracing, at the time of this writing two years after release, still doesn't work without crashing your system at random times. There is likely a memory leak that just wrecks frame rates once you play the game for about 45 minutes. The frames will drop to choppy and noticeable levels on my 13950h i9 intel and mobile RTX 4090 as well as my AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Strix RTX 4090 desktop system.

So the game outside of SEVERE performance issues, IS very engaging and high quality. The game world is gigantic and there is SO MUCH to do and explore and will give a lot of enjoyment.....IF you can run the game well enough to enjoy it.

At the time of this review, the Ray Reconstruction is still currently not functioning properly. With that said, most of the launch performance problems have been resolved for me on two high end systems I play on. I have completed the game and put a lot of hours in the game and here are list points of things I appreciate and don't appreciate about the game:

This is sadly a hot troll bait topic on gaming forums but it is also something that can be discussed intelligently. I am not going to delve into the depths of the politics and my own nuances as I have done that enough on the forums. However in my own personal opinion and expectations, there are aspects of the SBI/DEI focused areas of post modernism that I find a bit too far left. However I also see the GOOD aspects of DEI such as genuine inclusion and diversity that is in the game as well. So while I don't like the more subversive politics that can be seen in the writing (that has nothing to do with what most people troll about such as aesthetics and gender issues), I am able to separate the art and appreciate the game for what it does positively without being overly distracted. Most logic driven people won't be put off by what there is overall.

As mentioned above, Ray Reconstruction doesn't currently function properly. Overall, the game is playable currently and is actually quite a beautiful game and a huge step up from the other games. It's also relatively performant for what would be expected on the hardware I use. While I have a desktop 4090 and a laptop 4090, I can see where my performance was in the previous titles and what is currently offered and am overall quite happy with the "cost" of the performance to the quality that is given. The crashes to desktop and major problems are mostly in the past at this point.

Simply put, the game clearly shows the budget that is available to them with the amazing rendering, huge detailed cut scenes and tremendously complex and evolved game play. Parker and Morales have never been more nuanced, evolved, and competent in their craft. The game plays very well and is a good example of adding mechanics that overall are beneficial to the game such as the way you can now navigate a MUCH larger set of areas in New York. The game play is outstanding. HOWEVER there are examples of things I consider time wasters, or examples of where my time isn't being valued.

There are forced mini-games you have to complete with a variety of characters that really does take you out of the immersion of being Spiderman. It likely goes a bit to the more political ways that games can advertise certain quotas on diversity and educational components of representating inclusiveness, but it isn't "fun" and it does feel forced to hit whatever check marks and guidelines they are focusing on from a monetization and investor standpoint. That is frustrating.

Overall the game is a good game and is a recommendation from me. However I think it's smart to wait for sales if anything to just speak with your wallet to encourage the big studios to stop skimping on quality testing and other core development competencies in favor of more investor focused budgeting. I'm pretty confident the game will continue to get enough updates to eventually show off the game in it's best form. Even as it stands, this game is best experienced on the PC with the extra fidelity and upscaling options provided. It's quite a beautiful and overall fun game; most of the time.

I likely won't even complete this game or put hours into it but bought it for the nostalgia as a kid who truly was young and guessing answers to the questions with my friend as we played this when it released. I can't believe i got my mother to take me to the store to purchase it and literally was able to get away with it without her or the employee shining light to the fact it was an adult game!

It definitely taught me a lot about the benefits of using television as a diversion technique and the consequences of not having prophylactics on hand. I never knew you could die so quickly and that leisure suit Larry could be considered a form of harm reduction if used in sex education. Thanks for the memories Larry!

Virtua Fighter as a franchise has always been a high quality and competitive game; usually considered the best 3D fighting game as far as gameplay and competitive balance. The game play and mechanics are similar to a fine Rolex watch or Porsche 911 in that it has only had small evolutions and iterations of improvements throughout the generations. This is very appreciated in a day and age where new Mortal Kombat games often completely switch up the entire game play mechanics and move sets for each character, requiring re-learning the entire game. Virtua Fighter has kept it's characters, their known moves and play styles and will be very familiar to anyone who played the original in the 1990s and may just be coming back to the franchise.

The characters are all balanced and a great player can use the worst character and beat an average to good player using the best fighter which is the ultimate sign of a deep and competitive fighter. Below I will list some of the highlights of the game and areas that may not appeal to everyone.

Graphics:
1. Clearly still based on the game of the early to mid 2000s but upscaled and with more textures and technology to still be beautiful and relevant in 2025 which is just crazy to say.

Game play:
1. Easy to learn hard to master is very true for this game.
- It's not a dial a combo system but is very frame dependent. A lot of creative combos can be made with the unique physics and movement system.

2. The level of depth is second to none IMO. I'm not a very good player and I have played this game my entire life on and off at different periods. There are some AMAZING players and competition that will make you feel like you are a beginner playing a chess match against a master.

Online Network

1. It has rollback netcode with 3 or 4 different pre-sets including performance, balanced and quality which alters the amount of rollback frames that are allowed. 6 frames is for quality, 2 for balanced, and it appears there is deep learning that is making adjustments to those algorithms.

2. The netcode and connections have been outstanding for me and I am located in the US in the eastern region.

I think it's important to note that the game is mostly an online game for competition. There is an arcade mode but no other modes like story modes or others that are more common in today's fighters. That may be an issue for some, but I don't think it should be for the price. There is a lot of character customization but the best requires the 30th Anniversary edition.. This is a strong 8/10 as a purchase and truly one of my favorite all time fighting games that seems to be back and working on gaining momentum for Virtua Fighter 6. Exciting times indeed.

I haven't even gotten to tackle the DLC yet so let me be upfront on that. However I mostly see negative comments regarding that the content should be free or that the game still isn't in a good state and that should take priority.

If you are on the fence about this game, then I'm speaking as a casual fan and not all in on this game or genre. So I'm not dismissing criticisms of others because perhaps their in depth knowledge and expectations have fair points.

I find the game incredibly satisfying to play and I actually only play with the ai. I think the ai have gotten a lot better and honestly, most competing ai in other sim games are nowhere near as stable as this game.

The upgrade to unreal engine 5 actually helped my performance and didn't hinder it. Newer engines allow for faster patching and optimization with the improved tools given to the developers. The lighting also is better and the place where performance was worst at the swat station, is near perfect for me. I do imagine people will need high end hardware to enjoy the game though because of the engine. It's however not using nanite or lumen iirc so the negative impact on performance isn't nearly as prominent as say gray zone warfare.

Its a serious game with a serious tone and I am so happy for that in the modern era. In a day and age in western gaming where some studios pander to denounce and minimize the work of law enforcement such as the new Star Wars game where only theft against the police is tolerated. This game is paying a lot of respect to law enforcement and it's well deserved respect that barely gets any attention from most media sources.

There are little quirks like hostages hiding that prevent progression and a bit of prefiring and inhumane reactions of ai and ai teammates. However I think that can continue to improve. I do like the ideas that the community has with some types of ai who are influenced by their set and setting could be more realistic to how they would be in real life. Meth addicts who kidnapped someone may be very impulsive and run right at 5 armored up diesel AR-15 wielding swat members. However there should also be more defensively minded ai to face. I just had an idea writing this that some sort of mechanic that would require a negotiator prior to combat in some levels could be a real mechanic to change the pace.

Regardless, its a fleshed out game that delivered and just seeing this DLC on my feed made me excited to play it as I love the idea of a mansion type scenario. The team hasn't always delivered updates in the most timely manner, but the game continues to be updated with real improvements to core game play in addition to these paid levels of content. I see no issue and for the reasons I wrote above, I think the developers deserve the support for what they provide; even for only the truly authentic coverage of real people who risk their lives to save the lives many people wish didn't exist. That's a level of dedication in a day where an easier game to fund and make would be to mock them and trivialize their work.

8/10

The long and short of it is if you are a fan of NBA 2K then this game should be a no-brainer as it's the best version available. If you play online, it will likely play better on console due to less cheater presence. I don't play this game online so I cannot comment on that aspect. The graphics and overall playability is best on the PC from what I have read and watched in reviews. I can see the game offering a lot of value to people new to the franchise as well. It's just overwhelming a bit to sift through all the grimey predatory monetization pop ups and modes where micro transactions are much more prevalent such as in My Career. Once you get accustomed to the controls (the tutorials are just fine to learn) and find the game modes you enjoy, this game delivers.

Performance: I recommend people do their own research and even ask in the forums if they have doubts because it seems all over the place. I have two high end systems (1 desktop 4090 and a Blade 18 laptop with a mobile 4090). I have only played it on my Razer Blade 18 so far but the performance has been fine and I haven't had any of the issues some people report on. I just did two full shader compilation processes when the game released and have been able to run it with max settings and ray tracing enabled at the resolution of the screen 2560x1600. It plays perfectly on my system but I know it's varied.

Pro Tip: Absolutely wait for sales because no amount of improvements in this game are worth the depreciation that hits unless one is truly a professional level NBA 2Ker and or basketball fiend. This will no doubt be 75% off within the year. It may not get the usual 85% off just because the PC version does compete with the console versions for the first time and exceeds them in some areas as well.

An indie studio shouldn't need day 1 DLC fighters while also hoarding over half the roster for future DLC ti be drip fed like GTA content. The fighters are not unique and most are just reskins of the same fighters but without much effort into changing their stats and playstyle.

Plus RJJ 93 with no bar patch of hair on the back of his head?!

Low effort and high priced for minimal content.

I am succinctly rewriting this review as I nominated it for numerous steam awards and to level some badge, I'm required to make an edit. I probably am one of the vocal forum members that cannot stand the unethical practices studios use to influence their customer base to waste money and take advantage of their patronage. However when it comes to black myth wukong, it's easy to see an entire industry working to suppress their success.

1. Numerous reviews were overly critical of things that many other games are far bigger offenders in. Input latency to me was my only main gripe when I compare it to other UE5 titles. The fact it uses nanite and lumen AND hardware supported raytracing really shows an optimized game that requires major hardware to support it. And that shouldn't be an issue. There are plenty of UE5 games that are much less optimized.

2. The voice acting, beautiful big character boss battles and numerous different bosses and archetypes are almost industry leading. The intermission movies are artistic and varied in style from narration to cartoons and beautiful acoustics. The OST is very accessible and truly marvelous. The game didn't get enough recognition on these aspects.

Finally, the biggest issue is the efforts of the industry to leave it out of nominations and or reduce visibility and accessibility to be nominated. At least on mobile platforms using the steam app, I had to search a very finicky search bar to even bring up the game to be selected. The "popular nominations" and "games I've played" didn't even include black myth wukong which is why I had to search. This was one of my longest playtime games of the year too so there was no reason to leave this of all titles off the autopopulated games.

So from made up false misinformation hit pieces from IGN to try to tarnish the release and success of the game to the absolute irony of it being incredibly racist and culturally insensitive from the industries biggest DEI platforms and journalists just make me hope the game gets it's proper recognition.

The game isn't perfect but in a mid year for gaming and predatory studios who only try to take advantage of player engagement, BMW was a breath of fresh air and a genuine game of the year for me.

This project is interesting to me. I think it's gotta make some tough decisions on where it intends to go because I think the game should have more traction for some of its good mechanics. There is potential with the technical aspects I THINK given what I've played so far. It's difficult to tell if it's overly dialed in for good reason as I think it will take awhile to be really competent with the controls. However the depth to the mechanics is at a disconnect with the overall vibe of the game. It's like a bare knuckles on the street vibe more than boxing from the art style and lack of traditional boxing mechanics (ref, no knockdowns, only one continuous round etc). However it's mechanics are legit Marquess of Queenserry modern boxing, just doesn't have any of the modern rules of marquess of queensberry. I don't know if that is limiting it's potential or not but it's worth noting.

It's made by one developer and it's nice to see someone make a game they envision regardless of whether or not it fits into a wide audience or not. I think it's worth it's asking price but it's very alpha state. The UI is messy. The game plays well on steam deck. No issues there.

I'd like to see where this goes but it seems like it's gotta take off a bit with sales or someone has to infuse it with money. Perhaps higher end fidelity assets would make sales come easier? I hope the best for the project.

The music is high quality to me as I saw some comments somewhere saying otherwise. Perhaps it's that I'm a boomer and like lyricism over "lean back and perc yourself sideways" new school repetitive hooks.and voice synth. This all hits with a Midwest kinda vibe to me.

My last comment is sorta a potential ignorant wish in that I want to throw my punches from the sticks while also having the defensive mechanics. So I'd have no issue using the buttons for the defensive mechanics. But if there is a way to reimagine the controls to be a bit more intuitive for those used to total punch controls that would be fire. Maybe a few different layouts to choose from?

Touch Grace tarnished. You aren't worthy of playing real games like this.