Recent reviews by JonnyCheats

Coming directly off of a run in Chained Together, I was looking for another cooperative climbing game and bought this on a whim. Little did I know I'd be booting up my favorite game of the year so far. The gameplay loop is incredibly fun solo, and increases exponentially with a full 4-person lobby. It's simple but ever-changing map keeps things interesting. Skill, cooperation, and luck all contribute to each run, making every experience unique.

This is fantastic little game and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes in the future.

TLDR: Do not buy this buggy, slow, unfinished mess of a game.

As I've said on other Lego games post 2010 - for a company that has a formula that pays big, and 20 years experience of doing that formula, its like Tt Games doesn't have a QA department. There's a fun lovely game in here, but holy smokes there's so many little things that just choke the fun out of it.

First off, this game is unfinished. Like, literally, UNFINISHED. Battle of the Five Armies was not included and never came as a DLC. Honestly, what were they thinking? But honestly that doesn't even crack the top ten issues I have with this half-baked game.

Everything in this game is SLOW. Combat moves, building, in-level scripted events, building items, smithing mithril items, even buying characters takes like 10 seconds to let me have the screen back. Endless quick time events that are all the exact same. Buddy-up slo-mo moves that were old after the second level. FAST. TRAVEL. IS. EVEN. SLOW. You literally have to watch your character fly to your location, instead of, yknow, FAST TRAVELING. I need to find a mod so I can go to 2x speed when I'm bored, which is often.

Lots of bugginess that I think could have been ironed out if the devs weren't trying to crank out like 4 games a year at this time in their catalog. Things not lining up right, characters being launched into space, events not triggering in a timely manner, if at all. Wonky controls.

Free play character selection is annoying at this point in Tt's catalog, because there's SO many characters to choose from - which is fine - but several do the EXACT SAME THING. The roster is bloated. Why is the computer selecting TWO versions of Bilbo for my freeplay set? Old Lego Games seemed to put some thought into the auto selection when you did freeplay. For example, if the level had a force-object, they'd ensure you had a force-sensitive character in your party to switch to. But it's almost like, with the ability to switch to any character, they threw away this feature. But again, going through the whole roster to get the character you need takes more time and SLOWS the game down. Why send me with a set of characters to quick change between if not all of them are useful for the level, just to spend have the level time switching back and forth? Why send me with a set of characters at all?

And finally, maybe I'm just a cranky old man now who thinks this series peaked at Lego Batman 1, but the endless items to collect is overwhelming. Half of these "treasures" do absolutely nothing and do not add to the experience. Secrets and collectibles should make the game different either by making things easier (invincibility) or wacky (Groucho mustaches) but I'd say like 80% of the items are just a tool/weapon with a skin on it. I feel like they were given a required quota and just made a bunch of stuff, who cares if it is useful, just fill the game up with slop to take up time. The simplicity of 10 minikits and a Red Brick would have done wonders.

Overall, The Hobbit is another disappointing example of a great IP paired with a fun original gameplay formula of LEGO games, but was just forcibly excreted out of the Tt cash cow to make a Christmas rush. Who cares, right? the kids will play it anyway, right? Buy our slop!

There's a lot to like about this game, but I can't bring myself to finish because I feel like I'm just meandering around with little to no direction. The lack of a minimap is frustrating, since it's such a big map. There were several occasions where I just didn't know where to go and/or how to get there.

I finally got to the temple and it's just a dark room with no indication to what to do, or where to go. I had to look up a game guide to understand where to go next. Just an incredibly frustrating oversight in an otherwise okay game.

The humor wears a little thin as well. It's kind of the same Rick and Morty-esque joke over and over.

Original portraits should be in the base game, players shouldn't have to pay $6 to avoid AI-generated art.

The best Fallout game? I know the academic answer is New Vegas. I KNOW that is the objectively correct answer.

And yet, in my heart, it will always be Fallout 3.

I grew up playing Crash 1 and 2 and have very fond memories of each. The N Sane Trilogy keeps the core gameplay that made Crash so good and only really polishes it for a modern system. Replaying my favorite levels in a beautiful remaster was very enjoyable.

As an achievement hunter, I'm a little bummed about the herculean grind required to 100% is, so I will probably never add this to my perfect games list. But hey if you're here just to run around as a little manic marsupial pervert, you'll have a great time.

I'm not usually a roguelike fan but this game is the exception. The gameplay is designed so that you are as excited to start a run as you are to end a run and get back to your base. Very fun gameplay loop. Great art style too!

Loved this game for a long time but the latest update has kind of ruined it for me. Stability has taken a nose dive, and he devs have mistaken difficulty for just endless spamming of enemies.

Not to mention absolutely no QoL improvements that would be simple to implement. The devs spent the last few years working on two busted biomes instead of trying to polish the game. I could excuse it when it was an early access game that was just starting out, but its been 4+ years...

I love the Fallout universe, but this one just ain't got the sauce. I don't really find the story as intriguing as the others, I don't think Boston is as bleak or devastating of an area compared to the Capital Wasteland or the Mojave Desert. I don't really care for the base-building either. It just doesn't have the same gravitas as the other entries in the series, in my opinion.

Also the Brotherhood is insufferable in this one. I never finished the game, but I did kill all of them.

And finally, as of April 2024, I can't even play it with my modlist. Thank you Todd xoxo

This is my favorite game I'm bad at, which is a large category, but yknow for what its worth