Recent reviews by pass the fking ball

it's fun. it's free. it has a satisfying difficulty curve. it has an active online community. it supports steam workshop. there's literally no reason not to play it besides it being too hard (git gud)

after every run, i have to restart my game, or my 2nd run results in zero points being awarded.

fun game though

This is the FIFA Proclubs we've always wanted. PVP soccer that rewards team play, spacing, and individual skill. People are leaving negative reviews for minor issues while continuing to play non-stop, "Do as I say but not as I do" type crowd.

Context: I am a year 1/2 returning player, who wanted to scratch an old itch and see if the game was still fun.

It's not.

All of the original content is removed. For paying 60+ dollars for the original game and first expansion or two, I have nothing to show for it. In my eyes, if I buy a game, and it's DLC, I should be able to play those things. I am now treated like a F2P player, and spoiler alert, there ain't **** to do if you aren't buying each new expansion.

It's basically a subscription based MMO, but instead of $15 monthly it's $100 yearly. This wouldn't be so bad by itself, but from what I can understand, content gets cycled out very frequently. If I pay for a subcription for FF14, SWTOR, WOW, etc., I can still play everything, but if I pay for D2, I can play for a year before the levels/missions/worlds are removed. Apparently this is old news, but it means that I literally have nothing to do in a game that I paid full price for.

There are a few preview missions to entice new players into buying the newest expansion(s), but the preliminary cut scenes and writing makes the Star Wars sequel team look competent. After shooting a million enemies in the first mission back, there's a 5 minute cutscene about how "The Witness" is using "The Final Shape" to kill "The Traveler" and stop the powers of "Light and Dark"... At one point, they go "All hope is lost..." or something cliche, and I rolled my eyes back and said out loud "Until now?" Guess what the very next words in the cut scene were. This has happened every 3 months for the past 5 years; a new evil threatens to destroy everything, we beat it and save the universe, but somehow the process of winning spawns something even more catastrophic that we can't even comprehend the scale of how horrible it is, until something random happens and it all starts again. They have the creativity of a 5 year old who just learned how to read (amazing!) but the rhetoric of a 5 year old who doesn't know how to read (abysmal!). It's a shame because the graphical designs are amazing, the worlds and landscapes are beautiful, the characters are iconic, but the dialogue and overall story beats are so annoying I just mute the game anytime someone starts monologueing.

Destiny 2 has also shifted from an open world game with random timed public events and local public dungeons with some separate major dungeons to a level based game where you queue for the specific activity that makes you the most loot. The social and exploration aspects are almost entirely gone. In D1 and the first couple years of D2, you were incentived to roam around the world looking for chests, teaming up with randoms to achieve goals scattered throughout the world, and occasionally queue up for unique large missions. In modern D2, you are urged to consult spreadsheets and YouTube videos to find the next activity to give you the largest power spike; there is no natural progression.

The game is mechanically sound and very beautiful. The shooting and movement are amazing on both controller and M+KB, the characters are modeled perfectly and the environments are stellar, but the way you are forced to interact with the mechanics and environments turns it into a slog. Not to forget that years of paid content are now removed from the game...

This game is incredibly fun, but the playerbase is so low that it encourages toxicity at the higher ranks. This game desperately needs new players but the sweats get frustrated when the only people they can play with are new.

If you are at all interested, give it a shot, but TRY TO LOSE. There is no point in ranking up while you're getting better, you'll just be at 5 hours placed with tm8s at 500 hours, there's virtually zero middle elo players. Keep playing in low ranks, view losses as beneficial (the more you lose the easier/more fair your next games will be), and you'll have a ton of fun. I'm not saying you should throw your games/intentionally lose (unless you have a full team of friends that are ok with it), but recognize that when you lose, it's genuinely better for your entertainment and improvement.

Also it's free and has a very friendly monetization model. Premium lifetime options as well as battlepasses that don't expire (so no FOMO/play at your own pace) and return premium currency equal to its cost.

It's a fun game but the matchmaking is terrible. Maybe it's cause there aren't enough players?

I play a few games every couple of months and am reminded that it's impossible to keep up as the general playerbase has 1000+ hours with every dlc perk unlocked. You win 1 game and then you're put into matches with players with prestige 10-100 on their characters while I'm over here prestige 1 on a single killer.

Buying the game is more like a trial, in order to actually play you need to buy multiple characters and then spend 50 hours on each to unlock their perks to be used across other characters. There is no way to reasonably catch up to the people that have sunk their lives into this game, it is quite literally pay to win + there are no fellow casual players left to match make against.

Hopefully a more reasonable asymmetric horror game can reach the level of polish DBD has, but DBD is really only worth trying if you can get it for free and don't care about fair competition (unless you're willing to shell out 100+ dollars and 1000+ hours to be on level footing).

DDA is back and stronger than ever. difficulty change notifications are literally popping up in people's online rivals/champs games. EA, this would be so much more satisfying if you stopped the blatant scripting.

It's fun. It's free. no p2w or time wasting, so you might as well try it.

My favorite NFS of all time. Played through 3-4 times on PS4 and Origin, bought it again cause I need this on my Steam profile.

I personally think it has the best handling model of any NFS. It's still arcadey, but its not "handbrake at 200mph every corner like Heat" level of arcadey. It's just enough that drifting is optimal, easy, and satisfying.

The live action cutscene/story is cringey, but I also love it. It's not cringy in the same way as the old ones; the actors and the story don't take themselves too seriously, everyone's having a good time, and every single character is unique and lovable.

Also has the best graphics of any NFS, in part to the huge detail in the world and backgrounds. Heat looks nice and flashy, but almost empty, while 2015 has a super consistent and amazing aesthetic that all fits together and looks amazing. It's kind've like comparing The Crew to The Crew 2; Crew 2 may have some higher resolution textures, but it all looks like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ playdoh.

There's tons more content here than Heat, including world size/detail, story, and post game. The insane level of customization in Heat? Lifted straight from this game, so you know it has to be amazing. The only downside here is there is a more limited car selection, but all your European tuners and JDM dreams are present.

The biggest issue with this port is the controller support: no matter what controller you are using, you have to manually unbind all "steering wheel" controls and keyboard controls. If you're using a DS4 over an Xbox controller, use Steam's native support in big picture mode (and completely quit out of any 3rd party software like DS4Windows). Also, a lot of issues mentioned by other users are down to connectivity/hardware issues. This game is ALWAYS ONLINE (2nd biggest issue), so if you have slow or spotty internet maybe look elsewhere. If your hardware is just barely passing min spec, maybe look elsewhere. And if you have no technical knowledge about computers or controllers whatsoever, maybe look elsewhere.

If you can look past the aforementioned issues, I firmly believe you will love this game like I do. Literally and undoubtedly my favorite NFS game, and one of my favorite racing games of all time.

I edit this review every few patches as I retry through the game. Current review is under version 1.2.9 (2/10/2024)

I have played this game since it first released in early access however many years ago. My review has always been "No" until now, but it still is a really rough recommendation.

This game is a huge sink of wasted potential. It's a giant sandbox with a bunch of jank and half finished ideas. The "story" is ridiculous and everyone avoids it; the only reliable way to have decent wealth is by crafting weapons for unreal amounts of money; the AI even on the highest difficulty is stupid in all decision making; combat is block and hit until someone forgets to block, etc.

Aside from the million half baked ideas, there's a million glitches and bugs that influence how you play the game. Attacking units during sieges frequently get stuck on nothing and stand around until they get shot and die. Defending units will send archers straight into enemy infantry to presumably reach an impossible designated "archer spot". You can recruit mercenary clans into your own kingdom as if they were regular nobles, giving them extra utility and making your kingdom the strongest in the game with no consequences.

The game is shallow, disappointing, and broken. Yet, it's still fun. This game is similar to how I feel about Escape From Tarkov; the game is terribly made and the developers don't care now that they have buckets of money, but the concept and mechanics are so unique that you won't find another game like it.

The combat is stupid simple, but still slashy and fun. The bugs break certain features, but allow for cheesy strategies. The AI is braindead, but you can ignore them altogether and force everyone to do whatever you want to do. It's terrible and yet still manages to give you a medieval kingdom experience that you won't be able to find anywhere else.

It feels morally wrong to buy this game. Maybe buy it on discount, or from a key reseller, or from very legitimate 3rd party sites that offer games for free. If it seems interesting, you'll probably like it. I think the predecessor to this game, Warband, is the better purchase with more fleshed out features, but you'll likely still have fun with Bannerlord.