Recent reviews by Ghosta

First hour! What are my thoughts?

To begin, there is minimal difference between the Legacy and Enhanced version BUT if you know what you're looking for, you definitely see some changes. Outside of RT, basic reflections have been added to the rear view mirrors of cars and a motion blur effect has been added while driving, enhancing sense of speed.

No longer do you have to restart the game when you change a graphic setting aside from the textures & particles which is appreciated greatly. Additional settings have been added including a new ultra setting for the water and particles.

RT adds interesting new changes to the lighting, underneath objects and vehicles, you notice RT will darken these areas as light cannot pass through as much. The buildings also have more darker tones to them underneath balconies and other geometry through the use of RTGI & RTAO. The RT reflections create mirror images of the surroundings on shop windows, glossy car surfaces and more.

Other then this, there really is no big overhauls or difference aside from maybe a slight fps boost on dx12 hardware. It's pretty meh, it comes free with GTA V if you purchase it on PC so there isn't any massive complaints, if you start a new character in GTA Online you will instantly receive 4 million cash and you can pick a certain "role" which will grant you businesses that tie in with that role for example, you can choose to be a bikie which will grant you most of the biker dlc businesses to start with. This probably is the most meaningful change they've made but to lock it behind "Enhanced" GTA V is quite disappointing.

I'm still going to thumb this up as it came free and it's somewhat a reason to come back and replay GTA V if your craving one more playthrough before the next release of GTA. Although if you already play Legacy or you are a FiveM player, I'd say stick with Legacy.

Let me take you back... to 2014.

I wasn't much of a PC gamer, actually at this point I had an ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro and a 2.4ghz Pentium Core Duo. This didn't last long, the computer at the time was on its way out and after playing copious amounts of CS, I had the PC fever. I was hooked, my PS4 was collecting dust at this point and meanwhile I had wiped the dust off an old XP laptop I found lying around.

I can't remember the exact specs for the laptop but this was when Windows 8.1 was the most up-to-date OS, XP was ancient at this point and I didn't have any games to play except flash browser games. It was only lucky I could get Quake Live running at 60fps on lowest graphics, at this point Quake Live wasn't even on steam, you would go on a website and acquire it for free.

I still remember playing on the Intel sponsored maps which are now available in the Steam Workshop, there are also plenty more maps that have been preserved in the workshop such as Springfield from The Simpsons and plenty of different community map packs.

Although the game isn't free anymore, there is some value to be had if you have interest in playing Quake 3 Arena. For example, setting up the original Quake 3 Arena can be a real pain for modern systems due to system compatibility, not only that, the playerbase has all but withered away and from the looks of it, Id doesn't plan anytime soon on giving it the NightDive treatment nor has made any effort to update compatibility.

Your best option is to play Quake Live, it basically is Quake 3 Arena with full widescreen support and modern features available that would usually require manual file edits and looking all over forums and modding sites to gather fixes, not only this but modding has been made simple via steam workshop and out of all the online Quake games, this would most likely be the most populated.

A certified classic!

Holy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥, I cannot stand this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ expansion. Don't waste your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time on this ♥♥♥♥

DOOM 3 in alot of ways is the black sheep of the franchise. It's a much more slower, darker and dread inducing game, I still get scared playing this with some moments nearly making me jump out of my seat genuinely. The lighting in the original still stands the test of time and definitely shows you don't need RT or Path Tracing to achieve these results, even the reflections are dead accurate to the scenery without any of these silly modern techniques required.

The game is dated and it might be a hard game to like after playing the amazing 2016 reboot but don't let that stop you from enjoying the aspects this game gets right. It still feels like DOOM in alot of ways especially as you venture into the second half of the game + the amazing expansion which wraps up the DOOM 3 story nicely. I love DOOM 3, it is up there with all the other titles and is something not to be skipped over.

My specs are as follows RTX 3070 / Ryzen 7 5800x / 32gb RAM / Samsung 990 Pro M.2

The game so far runs fine @ a stable 60fps capped with up-to-date display drivers, some settings had to be brought down a notch but the game still has a gorgeous presentation. I had no stutters when being flung halfway across the map in the prologue which is a promising sign but is to be expected considering I have an M.2

Funny story actually, prior to release I realised my motherboard only had one PCIE 4.0 slot which was limiting my M.2 to half the quoted speeds. I do wonder if maybe i'm not the only one who was unaware of this as after opening the magician software to see my speeds, I then realised the error and swiftly fixed it.

The lack of SSD requirements stated has me scratching my head considering this is a game built around the M.2 architecture to work alongside the PS5 hardware. Something to mention to anybody considering picking this up, ensure you have a fast enough M.2 SSD that is in the PCIE 4.0 or 5.0 slot of your mobo and optimal system memory, preferably 32gb. The game uses well over 16GB alongside some demanding VRAM requirements.

I don't own a PS5 so this is the optimal way for me to experience the game first hand, it's been a long wait and it's finally here. Hopefully Nixxes can release some patches for the other folks experiencing performance issues as i'm sure the port has some room for improvement in some areas although so far in my personal experience, I am having a great time with no stutters, fps drops or graphical glitches.

If you are experiencing performance issues, a couple troubleshooting tips to note are:

-Ensure your drivers are the latest up-to-date version and then give your PC a restart

-Set Power Management Mode to Prefer Maximum Performance in the Nvidia Control Panel

-Cap your FPS to 60 in Nvidia Control Panel

-Set all Graphics on Low and work your way up on each setting until you start experiencing performance
issues then lower accordingly

Great experience aside from some terrible writing. There weren't any plotholes like Pre-Sequel but most the characters introduced in 3 are absolutely abysmal. The saving grace were the returning characters which had plenty of source material to go off for continuation in this entry.

There was a particular event leading up to the end of the story that actually took me by surprise but didn't have the impact it should've had due to the issues in writing but this is just a jab at the writing aspect. The gameplay however is much improved compared to previous entries and I felt right at home in the Borderlands style gameplay, plenty of loot and variety in the weapons to keep myself engaged and I felt encouraged enough to test out certain builds with the skill tree alongside the characters.

Speaking of characters, compared to previous games, I was much more invested in the skill trees and action skills, I decided to go with Moze on my first playthrough which I intend on doing Vault Hunter mode (New Game+). She was a very strong character with a great action skill and cohesive skill tree to go alongside, I was constantly applying respec and testing out different skill combinations, seeing what worked and what didn't work. I never did this in the previous games so it was quite an interesting observation I made throughout my playthrough. It seems there is alot of replayability in the game if your willing to get past some of the terrible writing, sometimes I had to mute the dialogue throughout just to get through some of the cringe moments.

I'm not sure what the writers were smoking but damn it must have been some strong ♥♥♥♥, not to drag on but I feel like there was a bunch of Millennials in the same room discussing what the kids are into these days and it certainly didn't pack a punch at all. There were a couple jokes I genuinely had a laugh at but very few and far between, not like the stellar writing of Borderlands 2 and even Pre-Sequel gave me many more laughs in the comedy department. Certainly an underwhelming ending which leaves me with some concern on where we will end up in the fourth entry but I have optimism that they might have learnt from this experience as I know I represent a majority of players on the writing of 3.

Other then that, I really do recommend picking this up if your interested in Borderlands, if you've never played a Borderlands title, 3 is a great entry point but it certainly isn't my top recommendation, I'd still recommend going back and playing Borderlands 2 or even the first entry which is still a great title that will allow you to appreciate all the changes and improvements made in the newer entries as you go along in the franchise. These games can net you hundreds of hours and are certainly worth the money although I do recommend waiting on sales as these games do drop down in price quite significantly during these periods.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy!

squid game

Overwatch 2 is a critically acclaimed, team-based shooter game set in an optimistic future with an evolving roster of heroes. Team up with friends and jump in today.

The game is solid, aside from a few technical issues due to the game being locked to DirectX 9 and some slight personal gripes with gameplay.

I think the game is well worth a playthrough, I did find some writing decisions slightly odd and left a few plotholes unanswered, also way too many explosive barrels nearby in combat areas with some enemy types having one-shot damage even when you have optimal gear and leveling.

2K Australia may have been under some time constraints to push this out it feels like but for what it is, the overall package is very well crafted and will garner you potentially hundreds of hours.

An amazing game on an inferior port. I never asked for this.

This is the Wii U version of the game which has downgraded visuals and the original is not available for purchase anymore. This version is riddled with stutters, frame drops and inconsistent frame latency. After following all the tweaks listed on PCGamingWiki, I didnot manage to fix these issues.

Unfortunately I have to put a thumbs down, don't get me wrong, this is a 10/10 game if you can manage to find an original copy.