Recent reviews by Dark Passenger

KCD2 is the medieval fever dream I didn’t know I needed. Straight out of the gate, this is a CRPG masterpiece.. Imagine Monty Python directing a gritty historical epic while occasionally tripping over their own chainmail and, you’ve got this game. One moment, I'm hauling flour to pay for my meal; the next, I’m knee-deep in pig muck after a drunken brawl with Hans Capon, who somehow manages to be both insufferable and endearing.

Imagine a game that launches on day 1 without major technical issue. Seriously - Try to image that! The game is so immersive that I now instinctively sharpen my kitchen knives on a grindstone and apologize to my dog for not feeding him dried meat. Yes, the save system made me cry (Saviour Schnapps, why must you torment me?), but the sheer joy of roleplaying as a bumbling blacksmith-turned-rogue-poet makes every frustration worth it. If you’ve ever wanted to feel like a peasant with delusions of grandeur in 15th-century Bohemia, this is your chance. Just don’t forget to take a bath—seriously, everyone will remind you.

Update: 23 hours in: When I hit Rostov and the Red forest populated areas - I starting seeing a significant drop in FPS (from 40-50 down to 8-12) This drop renders these parts of the game unplayable. I have not yet spent time troubleshooting, but I am going to assume this is related to on-going struggles with Optimization. I'm not going to change my recommendation, but be aware - The struggle is real. Additionally, it was extremely cool to see Rostov and Yantar areas to find that the map layout is exactly the same as in Shadow of Chernobyl! Talk about Nostalgia! I wonder if I tried hard enough I could find the Wish Granter!

This is a gamer's game. It pushes and challenges you. The developers did NOT compromise. This is a STALKER game. It's messy, strange, beautiful, and sometimes frustrating. STALKER 2 is a fresh breeze in a 2024 that has already had some great games in it. For me, this was a must buy - and I am not disappointed AT ALL.

The game runs at 45+ fps on EPIC - which is good enough for me. Here's my hardware:
i7-12700, 32GB RAM, SSD, 3080Ti

Pleasantly Zen. Might be better than scribbling designs on a napkin during a video conference! Still looking for paths for advancement, but figuring out that you'll find them the more you try to mix and match things. i.e. draw a path into a building to create a door - widen said path to build an arch. The on the fly procedural generation is awesome. Wish I could use this as a tool for level design for an RPG!

This is a really intriguing and quirky game. Really like almost nothing else. Solve murders as a detective, or terrorize the NPC population! Or maybe a little bit of both! There is enough variety in the procedurally generated cases and places to assure that the value proposition of this game is extremely high.

This game is ambitious, so it's not without its flaws. I only experienced an occassional bug, and sometimes it's hard to tell if a case I can't solve is a bug, or a reflection of my ability as a detective.

The voxel based art is great, and really captures it's gritty cyber-noir setting. There's a TON of detail and you can interact with almost everything.

This game really does give you an unparalleled level of freedom for a detective game. It really is a fascinating exploration into what an open-ended detective game can achieve. Highly Recommedned.

This game is quite literally out to kill you.

This game really takes me back. Allows you to move at your own pace with some intense moments of arcade space combat. Space exploration lite with elements of resource collection and tech tree. Space gameplay and story Hearkens of 1986's Starflight and the original Star Control 2. I'd recommend it on sale.

Retro fan of YARS REVENGE on Atari 2600. Yes, I'm that old school. These are just my initial impressions. This game has all the basics of the game loop that made the original addictive. They've added levels of complexity on top of the original gameplay that the jury is out on whether it adds to the overall gameplay. One thing I do NOT like is having to press space to nibble. If my memory serves; In the original you could simply fly into the shields to nibble them. Having to press space is a negative to me. Certainly worth the $4.99 I paid.

From the moment I opened it, until 10 hours of gameplay - I couldn't stop. Instant scratching of the flow state itch. It does for me what I was hoping Satisfactory would do, but doesn't. The big thing is zero construction / destruction costs. Allows you to focus on developing, executing, troubleshooting a solution to the problem.

Great overall graphics and more importantly great user experience! A thoughtful collection of hot keys and hot key tip prompts. Game provides simple tools to accomplish complex tasks. Gameplay flows well helping train you in dealing with the increasing complexity.

Finally, the universe seems absolutely HUGE! When you get past the operator certification you'll gain the ability to to expand to other sectors to mine for shapes and colors.

Incredibly polished for an Early Access. Grab it while it's 20% off! But would recommend this at full price as well if you like factory builders. I think this is the next standard bearer.

They had me at Lance Reddick. R.I.P. Oh, and this game is incredible.

What is there to say? At only a few hours in I can already tell you that this game is a masterpiece of open world game design. The graphic and sound design is incredibly beautiful and immersive, and it has a meticulously crafted story with all the attraction of the side quests that make its story driven open world comparisons great. At the simplest, In my reviews always try to tie the game mechanics to other games that I've played before this one. In this case I sincerely believe this game stands tall among other similar games such as The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 (I don't mention others because those two are the all time greats and few compare to them). If you liked these other games AT ALL - Then Ghost of Tsushima is an instant buy. It truly scratches my story driven open world game itch!!

I will add more to my review as I spend more time with the game. I have experienced no bugs, and only some slight performance issues at 4k 60 on my RTX3080TI on Ultra settings with DLSS set to quality. The game also seems to respond well under load when I'm multi-tasking with other GPU heavy applications like Nvidia Broadcast if I lower the in game settings a touch. I'm guilty of running this game in the background over parsec from my Mac when I'm in between meetings at work. :-)