Recent reviews by Fredericks of Cursewood

Peak CIV.

Don't buy this DLC. Buy the CK3 Chapter II Bundle.

The dlc by itself is $30 and the bundle is $5 more and you get the next two dlcs that come out and assuming that they are also $10, that is $20 worth of dlc for an extra $5.

I know what you are going to say. Shut your cake hole. I don't want to hear it. If you at all interested in this dlc, buy the bundle and you can thank me later.

Thanks for the clarification from CrusaderSVK287 about the next 2 dlc being flavor packs.

It is the Dark Souls of Sports Sims.

After +120 hours in the game, I think it is time to give my first impressions. I have played all 4 playable characters through the whole main story. Really have not done any deep dives into the dlc other than taking advantage of the permanent events.

With that said, this game has exceeded my expectations on a lot of fronts and so I am giving it a thumbs up. It not only exceeded expectations, but might be my favorite Borderlands to date which is saying a lot since I stuck about 1700 hours into BL2. The game really refines the looter shooter formula and feels like solid progression from its meager roots in BL1.

Likes 1: Builds and skills are a lot more balanced than previous games which might not be saying much (Salvador the walking talking glitch). For the most part, BL2 characters only have 1-2 viable builds for end game content. I can't say for certain yet, but it feels like the skill trees and gear are a lot better thought out in this game.

Likes 2: Pets are actually useful in this game. They are not perfect AI companions, but compared to Gaige's Deathtrap, they are light years ahead. I love how they impact the play on Zane, Fl4k, and Moze.

Likes 3: The graphics are better but the sounds of the guns especially are way better. It really gives each gun a unique sound and feel.

Dislike 1: This is going to sound like complaining about too much money or too much s e x, but there are too many legendary drops early in the game and this feeds into my second dislike.

Dislike 2: There is just Legendary and no Pearls, Seraphs, Effervescent or Glitch weapons. I know its just a color, but when one of those dropped you would think that you were getting something even better than a legendary.

Dislike 3: There is no reason to use non unique (white, green, blue, and even purple) weapons for anything other than the first few levels. That was one of the things that I enjoyed in BL2 was seeing that purple, blue, or even green drop if it is good gun with good parts and use it for several levels. The only thing that I care about in this game is how much I can sell it for which is a real shame.

Neutral: The story. I was expecting the worst and it wasn't that bad. I have not gone into the directors cut yet, but I did spoil it by watching a YouTube video on it. For me, it irons out a lot of the weak points in the story and character progression in a few key characters. In my head the story that was left on the cutting room floor is canon and the one in the game is just a fever dream.

Outside of the main story, there is a mix of good and bad. Unfortunately, a lot of the bad comes early in the game and I see how it can leave a bad taste in people's mouth. Even like Claptrap has changed. In the previous games, he was your annoying little brother. He was annoying, but you still love him. In BL3, Claptrap is like your friend's annoying little brother. You just want to ♥♥♥♥♥ slap'm so that he shuts up.

BL3 is really missing that T.K. Baha character like BL1 had early in the game. Obviously, Marcus is driving the bus and then Claptrap greets you and there are a few others in Fyrestone. T.K. Baha is the one that really sold me on the setting of Pandora. If there was any doubt in my mind of what Pandora and thus Borderlands was about, talking to T.K. for five minutes made it perfectly clear.

Outside of the main story, the side quest and NPCs run the gambit from adequate to exceptional. Even for the ones that are really well done, its not enough to push the needle above a "meh".

Final thoughts coming in another 1000+ hours.

"The King said I was daft to build a Fortress in the Swamp, but I built it all the same just to show em. The dwarves starved and It sank into the swamp, so I built a second one. That one was overrun by Goblins and then sank into the swamp. So I built a third one, the dwarves dug too deep and let loose the scourges of hell and that one burned down tipped over and sank into the swamp, but the fourth one stayed standing and that is what you are going to get lad." *

Most games are a refinement on established norms of the industry, Only a few games actually expand the bounds of what gaming can be and inspire a new generation of game developers to go into entire new direction. Dwarf Fortress is one of those boundary expanding games, one the most influential games of the last 20 years, and its legacy will be felt for decades to come.


* https://youtu.be/g3YiPC91QUk?t=29

MH:Rise is probably the best entry point for someone new to Monster Hunter. It's fairly basic and is also fairly easy compared to MHWorld in that there are not really that many Monsters that will stop your progress for more than a few hunts. So for anyone new to Monster Hunter and a bit apprehensive about difficulty, Rise is a really good entry point. In the end, I think it stays true enough to the Monster Hunter formula along with having a deep enough roster of montsters to give pretty good value.

On the negative side for anyone who likes to play coop and doesn't have friends to play with, the search function for finding hunts is utter garbage. Although MHW in some ways was worse with having to see cut scenes, it also had a slick feature that allowed you to screen available hunts. MHW would also show you how many players are already in the hunt as well as their gear and it would show you how much time as gone by since the hunt started. I have had so many hunts end within 30 seconds of me loading into map. I would say that on average, over half of my hunts were 5 minutes or less.

If you typically play solo, this should not be a problem. If you have some dedicated friends that you play with, this should not be a problem. If you don't mind swooping in on the last second of a hunt and getting the full reward, this is not a problem. If you like your hunts to last more than 10 minutes, still like coop hunts but don't have friends that available when you are, this is major downer.

As far as the new mechanics in Rise such Rampage, silkbind(I know I butchered that) moves, and Wyvern riding; I guess that I am mildly positive. I like it when the developers experiment to some degree to keep things fresh and new. I hope they don't come back in future titles, but am okay with them in this game.

Updated review and not an April Fools Joke.

Here are the problems with the game at this point in time and why I am reversing my review from positive to negative.

1. Bots and Gold Miners are ruining the in game economy. As F2P or mostly F2P player, the in game economy is so bad that there are very few ways to progress other than do you your daily quest. Roll the dice on upgrading your gear. Fail and come back tomorrow or get your credit card because of how hard everything is time gated.

There should be an alternative by buying mats off of the market from other players and you can't make money other than questing or sinking tons of hours into the couple of trade skills that are somewhat profitable.

2. The guild system is the worst one that I have ever seen. I would kind of understand if it they had a limit based on account rather than character. I want to join a guild with my discord group and they are full and have a waiting list to get in. What is more is that its pretty much their main characters and they can't take alts into the guild because of the cap. It's the most bizarre anti-social feature in an mmo that I have ever seen.

3. Dead content. For the most part, tier 1 Chaos Gates and Abyssal Dungeons are dead. Not enough people show up at Chaos Gates to complete them and pugging Abyssal Dungeons are pretty much suicide. Unless you can find a group of people that are somewhat competent and informed to form a party for the Abyssal Dungeons, they are a complete waste of time as you most likely wipe. Not having large enough guilds with sufficient players at various levels just adds to the misery.

4. Gear progression and honing. I have around 5000 hours logged in BDO and if you would have asked me if it would be possible to have a worse gear progression and upgrade system than Black Desert and I would have to say that would not be possible until I played Lost Ark. I know that is going to sound contentious, but Lost Ark is so hard time gated. Even having 4 alts, really didn't help that much for what you get out of them which is one of the reasons why I heard that you should have alts to feed your main upgrade mats.

5. Alts! I am an altoholic and I initially liked playing alts. I used the 2 Powerpass to get them up to the end game of tier 1. I then did a couple of knowledge transfers to get #4 and 5 alts up to Vern and Shushire. That was a mistake. The low tier Chaos Dungeons and Raids yield such pathetic rewards that I ended up upgrading them so they could do the higher level ones and even those were pathetic yields when it came to getting +13, +14, and +15 gear on my main.

What is more and maybe even worse is that each character has to do the story quest for each new region. Non of the region story quest are short. It would be one thing if the story was optional or maybe 45 minutes or less to complete per character, but its a minimum of 2 hours per character and more like 3 and that is skipping any side quest and jamming the G key to get through all the dialogue and skipping the cut scenes. I get doing it once and maybe having an option to do it again if you want to, but making it mandatory to do every character in every region is just beyond painful.

There is an option around this by using the Knowledge Transfer, but here is the problem. Each stage takes more gold and it can total up to 4000 gold per character if you do the knowledge transfer at each stage to do Rohendal on up. Since the economy is busted because of bots, there isn't a very good way to make gold. So the only option is to swipe and put real money in the game and since the bots are destroying the market, they are also siphoning off gold for "RMT" and its leaving an awful conversion of real money going through the cash shop. So much so that at this point and time it was cost me $100 to use the knowledge transfer on 4 alts just so that I can skip the story lines in each new region that I go.
(This review will remain negative until the time when the bots and gold miners are gone from the game.)




(My initial impressions at launch)
Fredericks Gaming Scorometer:

Character Creation: Out of possible score of 90, I gave it a 43. I was a little disappointed in the lack of customization options available. I spend 3 hours making a character for Dark Souls even though I know they are going to look like a piece of bacon 20 minutes after I start. Character creation is very spiritual process where I pour all of my creative energy into my characters and this one just doesn't do it for me, (43/90)

Gameplay: I give this a 5 out 5. It's pretty fun so far,(5/5)

Story: I gave it a 2 out of 4. It does its job so far, but nothing has really grabbed me. Could be a whole lot better. Could be a whole lot worse, (2/4)

There are no clinical studies that show significant statistical correlation between Lost Ark and the frequency of testicular cancer in 3 legged sheepdogs so I have to give it a 1 out of 1. (1/1)

So for you homies who can't add and keep score, that is 43 + 5 + 2 +1 = 51

That's 51/100 and that is a big old 👍🏻.

Seriously, its f2p. Download it, play it. If you don't like it, then uninstall it, Don't think for a second that buying crap in the cash shop is going to miraculously make it better. P2W is a crutch for the weak willed and no talent try hards. If you enjoy the game, then its alright to buy something appropriate, Devs got to eat too. ☮

This a positive review in context of being a F2P so far. I'll start out with a few cons because I know that for a number of people this will be a "no go".

Cons.
1. Walking simulator to start with. Areas are rather large and being FTP, you can't even sprint until level 10. Even running in the game seems slow compared to other games. Even when you pick up your first mount(speeder) at level 20, it feels slow. Not as slow as running or walking everywhere but really seems like everything is needlessly spread out and takes too much time to get there.

Granted there is a quick travel mechanic and all the worlds so far have had a Taxi service, but they are not exactly as user friendly as they could be. Quick travel is time gated in that if you can use it more than once in about 5 minutes.

I could see a lot of people quitting the game within the first couple of hours because you literally walk from point A to point B 80% of the time.

2. Combat is really nothing to write home about. Mainly Tab Targeting and not especially challenging. Most of the enemies are pretty weak and present no threat. What made it even more tedious was that the default option for the companions is Healer which is not really needed in the beginning parts of the game. When I changed the companion to DPS and better used my own skills, it made enemies die pretty quick so the combat was less sucky.

3: Graphics. Game is 10 years old and looks like its 20. I have not made it to later areas and I have seen a little bit of footage from the test live server for the new updates and it looks much better. It is what it is and I don't mind playing games with below average graphics as long as it still looks good. You can customize the UI to a degree and make it tolerable.

Pros:
1: It's the story stupid! What more do you want me to say? I really feel that that it is BioWare at its best. Its dramatic while still retaining some cheeky humor. It has good cut scenes, excellent voice acting, and the world building is good enough to pull me in and makes me want to keep playing.

2: Companions. This is a little weird in that an MMO would have companions, but they are very integral to the story and your character and really help flesh out the world. In true BioWare fashion some are likeable, some are not, but they are all memorable.

3. Its solo or coop friendly in an MMO world. I have largely played solo myself as I progress through the game, but I think it would be ideal for 2 person coop.

4. There is a lot of content even for F2P. Once you get going and leave the starting planets, it does have more of vast galaxy to explore feeling than other single player games. The game was released 10 years ago and development started several years prior to that. There is just a lot of planets and areas to explore. Even playing through on multiple characters, I can see there being a fair bit of new story and content even when playing on the same worlds. If you pay for one month subscription, then you unlock almost all the content even after the subscription drops and become a preferred player.

Conclusion: If you can stomach the slow pace of the first hours and the combat, there are multiple brilliant stories to be experienced in a vast and captivating Star Wars Universe.

Side Note: I do plan on subbing at some point. If you do sub using Steam, make sure that your Steam id are synced with the SWTOR web site or bad things may happen. Otherwise, just sub directly. U dew Ewe. I am not your dad or am I?

I am kind of surprised that I have not reviewed this game yet, Surprise! It's my favorite of the series. I played DS2 twice as much as I did DS and DS3 combined. DS2 really hit the mark as slower pace, tactical, and methodical combat. I love the variety of viable builds in the game. I love the fashion in the this game compared to the others. I love the community that still plays this game and there are fair number of people on my friends list that I have met through this game.

I'm a a Sunbro at heart and the thing that I love the most about this game is the "Frigid Outskirts". Growing up in Minnesota, it really made feel like home. I spent a good deal of time throwing my summons sign next to Vengarl of Forossa's sign in the hopes that the host would choose us both of which they very often did. I would stick to Vengarl's side like glue and watch his back <head canon>and he would watch mine</head canon>. It would be me, Vengarl, the host, and maybe another summons going across the frozen waste. Me trying to keep the host from going the wrong direction or running when the blizzard hits. As long as Vengarl was alive, I would be alive and as long as I was alive, Vengarl would be alive except for the times that he got donkey kicked off of the cliff.

We would get to the fog gate for Lud and Zallen and I would cast warmth to heal everyone up before we go in. The host would lead the way and the rest of us would follow. The host would take one cat and I would take the other and Vengarl would do whatever. We would get one cat down and I could tell the host was relieved and let their guard down. And that is when it usually happened the. One cat left and usually at around half health or less and the 3 of us at full health. What could possibly go wrong? An enraged cat is what can go wrong. The host rushes in get the final blow and the cat lashes out first and taking 3/4 of the host health in one hit. Panic hits. Roll, roll, run, roll, hea...too late. "You Died". Leaving me just standing next to Vengarl and shrugging as the world fades away,

New Review at 3700 hours. More of an answer to some the criticisms that I hear about the game/

BDO is P2W!
A: Yes it is and I like it that way. I got the game for free and I have stuck a total of $57 into it of which I still have around $29 left in Pearls to spend. So I have put in less than $30 into the game while buying $150-$200 dollars of Pearl Shop items from the in game marketplace. Once you get into the game and understand it, its pretty easy to make vast amounts of silver. I have run Value Pack and Secret Book of Old Moon almost the whole time that I have been playing. Some of them have been log in rewards or picking them up on sale or buying them off of the in game market. I have never found the game being limiting by being frugal. No classes, mounts, or areas are gated behind a pay wall and the items that are P2W in the Pearl Shop are pretty marginal for me.

If I would have been playing any other MMO with a buy in, subscription, and dlc, I probably would have sunk $200 into it in the same amount of time. Thanks, I will just shovel that money saved into my retirement account.

BDO is a Korean Grind Game and Time waster.
I know this is controversial but I think the AFK system is brilliant. I like the fact that I don't need to be sitting at computer to make progress. Progress is slow, but it doesn't mean that I have to dedicate myself to the game in order to make progress. I principally life skill and they have range of active, semi afk, and afk functions. I set my own goals as to what I want to do. I have a daily routine that I do as far as farming, cooking, check the markets, buy and sell what I need to. When I am finished, I feed my workers, tend the farm, set a character to train for however long that I am going to be away, minimize bdo to the tray, and then go to work, sleep, meet with friends and family or whatever. When I come back, my farm is ready for harvest, my workers have gathered materials for me, my character has gained EXP and skill. If you are normal busy adult and don't mind letting your computer on all the time, its actually pretty easy to progress where as in other games, you are tied to actively playing it.

The AFK system is actually legalized botting. I am not saying that there are not hackers in BDO with macros to grind, but there is a lot less incentive to cheat by botting when you can legally just afk. Show me an mmo that doesn't have an AFK system and I can assure that there an enormous amount of bots that are destroying the in game economy.

Since most of BDO can be played solo, you are not really tied to someone else's schedule. There is no LFG, waiting for the tank to finish his phone call or having your healer lose internet halfway through a dungeon and then sitting there waiting to see if they are coming back or not. You play at your own pace, make your own goals, and if you want to group up with friends or do something with your guild, there is always that.

Old Review at 170 hours
Pretty good idle/spreadsheet sim with nice graphics, some decent hack and slash combat in a rather large world to explore. Pity that the main story isn't better and of course beware the dangers of the Pearl Shop or should we call it the Peril Shop?

To me and a lot of people, the biggest flaw to the game is the gear progression and subsequently the PvP. If you are coming to the game and expect a fun and fair PvP system either don't pick up the game or get a case of @$$ lube because you are going to get totally effed until you put a hundreds of hours in or 10s of thousands of dollars into the cash shop in order to get equipment that is barely suitable. It also helps to be a gambling addict as the gear progression is a thinly veiled casino.