Recent reviews by VJ

Red Hook missed the mark again. This DLC, much like Crimson Court, is a further deviation from the core gameplay experience and exasperates the negative aspects of the game.

Color Of Madness is intended to fill the role of an Endgame, whereby you endlessly kill enemies for as long as possible to obtain a high score. There are no leader boards or any form of acknowledgement outside of achievements. In-game rewards come in the form of new trinkets you can purchase. Additionally there is a new roaming boss that you may encounter.

The issue can be summarized as simply: grinding is not fun. The base game is designed for you to run 30~ minute dungeons; afterwards changing areas and classes to avoid feelings of repetition. Color Of Madness has you using the exact same party for hours at a time, creating a very monotonous experience.

It's not so offending given the price tag, but after playing the content through once I can say I will never revisit it.

Paid mods. Get the other version.

Paid mods.

I really don't enjoy anything this DLC adds, exception being the new class, which is great fun to use.

My complaint isn't that the curse system is too difficult, in fact I feel blood vials are trivial once you obtain the new blood vial generating district building. So what exactly is my problem?

It's just not fun. The additional micromanagement, the new enemies are very similar to whats already in the game (fast stresser, slow front, etc..), and one large 'epic size' sprawling map area which simply ends up feeling empty and tedious. Districts are interesting but I wouldn't exact list passive bonuses under the fun category.

While the new bosses were fun and unique, in the end they are just bosses. The bulk of the game is still one big grind, and when the DLC only makes the grind less fun, its simply not worth it.

This is the first actual rogue-like to truly capture my attention. Combat is fun, lots of items, builds, and classes. Inventory management and exploring is made easy, keeping the difficulty where its fun - in the combat/character builds. The main developer is a great guy, community is always friendly. If you didn't realize this game is also free!

You can download it from their website, buying it on Steam is to support the developer & it unlocks a few perks such as cosmetic, additional class and item vault storage. Try it out, see if you like it, you have nothing to lose. Highly recommend the DLC as well.

This game hasn't improved much since it's launch in early access. Just look at the ratings, not much more needs to be said. My refund was denied, so I'll leave a review instead.. Stay away from this hot garbage.

I just have to voice my opinion. In no world is this DLC worth $5. A complete spit on deluxe edition purchasers.

$5 for one single Civ is a complete joke. I think we all assumed we were getting more value when we purchased the digital deluxe edition.

I've played Elite for nearly 300 hours, and have reached the top of the grind ladder. In truth, Elite is the best space-simulator around and that fact really just adds to the tragedy of it all. Elite is a game with a lot of potential, but I ever so increasingly do not believe Frontier is capable to act on that potential.

The game looks, feels, and sounds good. But let’s say you have been playing for a few months. You’ve flown a lot different ships. You've done the trading, the fighting, the mining. You committed yourself to the grind, got consumed by the vision and got yourself into a Cutter or Corvette, the highest tier ships.. Now what?

If you ask people on Frontier’s forum: you fly your spaceship. One station to the next, back and forth. This takes a long time, because of a decision way back in Alpha. That’s it. That’s the game. You enjoy flying your spaceship. Because it’s immersive.

Frontier’s problem is instead of designing a game that is fun, they have listened time and time again to very vocal players on their forums who value tedium more than fun. The final straw was when they introduced a quality of life feature this year - the ability to transfer ships from station to station. In your Type-9 Trading ship, but suddenly have the urge to fight in that combat zone you just passed? Just dock at the nearby station and instant transfer! Free of charge! Into the battle in just a few minutes. Or, at least that is how the premise went.

The transfer feature was reworked - due to whiners on the forums - and it now can take hundreds of thousands of credits and several hours to transfer ships to your position. And that is just within the human bubble. In fact, it can take billions and up to 7 days wait time for very long distances. Yes - that is 7 (seven) days, real time, to move a ship from point A to point B.

In this self proclaimed MMO you can't even exchange currency with other players. Powerplay, another multiplayer feature, is long abandoned. Lots of instancing, and lots of bugs. Singleplayer? The game’s storyline develops at a snails pace. A snail that is moving so slowly you can't even tell if it's moving at all. Elite’s longest running storyline has been being teased now for years, and it’s the alien first contact. The thargoids. Hinted at a full year ago, and they don't yet exist in game.

Everything in this game takes time. Frontier is pandering to players who don't want to have fun, they want to have a job in space. They want to fly their spaceship in a straight line for minutes, sit back as their ship flies into station docking and say “I am a space trucker! It's real!”

I've spent my time and now can only reflect and hope Frontier comes to their senses eventually. Planet Coaster, also developed by Frontier, is a testament that they remember what fun is like. Until then, I’ll be playing something else.

Inexcusable performance issues with this game. Very low fps/stuttering performance (I can max Witcher 3 @60fps but not this?), graphical glitches, loads of sporadic bugs in-game, and let's not forget the mini hangs/pauses. Probably the least fluid gaming experience I've ever had, it's like I'm in kindergarten playing Red Light Green Light again.

This is a PC exclusive, there really is no excuse Firaxis. The reviewers weren't wrong (unless you hate timers), the gameplay is rock solid. The modding support is excellent. On most fronts its XCOM:EW 2.0. But I'm starting to think the only reason it is a PC exclusive is because the amateurs can't get the game to run on anything else.

I tremendously hope they patch this so I can change my review to positive, but Firaxis isn't exactly known for fixes outside of expansions. I'm not holding my breath.