Recent reviews by Jejjo

I genuinely believe the term 'free-to-play' should be revised and the term 'free-to-try' should become a normal sub-genre, much like how 'roguelike' and 'roguelite' were given respective different identities.

I say this because Overwatch borders closer and closer on becoming a pay-to-win game as more characters release behind pay walls and grind walls, it's a very important thing in this game to swap characters mid-match to suit team comps and you will be at a disadvantage if you do not yet own all the characters, especially now that there are 3 supports that you can buy. The fact they are also locking some gameplay content like the PvE campaign inherently does not make this a free-to-play game anymore since those parts are in fact not free to play, most free-to-play titles will exclusively monetise cosmetics and leave all gameplay services available to everyone.

First match I got in I got flamed for not knowing what was going on, was on a map that wasn't in the game at launch when I last played and against heroes I didn't know the abilities of. Would not recommend to anyone that hasn't yet already played the game, the community is practically the same as the League of Legends community a few years ago. It's also very overwhelming to take in all the new information about this game, there are many skins that change a character's silhouette making it very difficult to tell which character is which from a glance, you're expected to memorise many of them, it gets particularly difficult when many of the female characters share similar body types. It would be very helpful to have an option to disable cosmetics but Activision must prioritise income over game readability.

Would not recommend anyone that has played the game previously get back into it either, it's still the same game that it was when you last touched it, warts and all. The thing that hurts it the most now is that if you didn't touch Overwatch 1 for 9 or so months there would be a bunch of new characters for you play as right away but now if you come back after the same amount of time those new characters will be behind pay walls or grinds. It really does suck coming back to a game only to discover there isn't anything new to do right away and you have to do the old stuff that made you quit the game in order to get the new things that may or may not make the game fun again.

I don't want to add to the pile, I respect that people do enjoy the game and I'll dabble from time to time myself but it genuinely is one of the most user unfriendly games I've seen in the last decade and a half. They will remove conveniences and add minor but unnecesary bloat all to service monetisation.

I really wish they would separate the casual and competitive audiences and let each of those parts of the games deviate from each other, casual matches have far too many restrictions for them to feel casual and competitive still feels like it's in its infancy with room for hero or even map bans. In fact the map pools they had at Overwatch 2 launch felt like a feature targeted toward the competitive audience that got push back from the casual community since it went against the casual nature. Separating the two feels like the best course of action.

Pretty interesting game.
10 hours into a coop run at the time of posting this and still unlocking new stuff to do, having a lot of fun.
There's a lot of detail in it so far, the animation work particularly stands out. Pretty interesting style and world too.
Game's only been up for a couple days and the developers quickly respond to issues and fix them.
Already has a pretty promising roadmap. Eager to see where this game goes. Seems to have a very clear identity and direction which is refreshing to see from an Early Access game.
Would heavily recommend this played with friends rather than alone. Give the demo a shot with a friend, it's free.
Don't be afraid to miss things. Each path can certainly take longer than expected if you chug along at minimum speed and meticulously pick up every material like I do but the game gives you ways to catch up pretty quick with an autocollecter and guaranteed resources at every stop on the rail.

If I were to give one bit of feedback so far though it'd be wishing for a less linear research path. Kinda weird that you have to research and build a garden box (that you can't use straight away) before you can get your hands on a grapple hook but I can dig it for now. You know, something more like a research tree rather than research tiers 1, 2, 3 and so on to the 20-something we're on now. Still don't know how to get armour for the train or any decor items yet.
But otherwise really fun game. Don't have any other issues. At least from a coop perspective.

Okay, looks like they fixed most of the issues I had.
I put up a review a couple weeks ago detailing my grievances with the game from poor performance to constant crashing to poor matchmaking with the footnote at the bottom that I'd remove the review if the majority of them got fixed. Thankfully, they have. The performance and crashes have been completely fixed on my end but it still seems others have the issue and while the game still seems to have poor matchmaking despite most people seemingly only queuing for Trios and abandoning Duos, I can comfortably start recommending this game.

Though, after playing the game for a bit more now I feel as though the game is not in a very good state for new players to start playing the game. On top of the poor matchmaking that will face you off with and against players that have been playing the game for years, It feels like it takes waaaay too much time to level up and acquire new characters and those free characters feel power crept to hell with all the new DLC heroes they've released over time. As well as that the game seemingly only has a very brief tutorial that teaches you the absolute basics of the game and seemingly neglects to tell players about many of the other mechanics of the game. I didn't know there was a wheel you could access to see all your restorative items, I didn't know Lifeline had a hidden mechanic where she can get extra items (this is not told to you through the game, a friend had to tell me this, I have no idea how many other hidden passives and mechanics are in the game), I didn't know how to manage the inventory and all of the attachments you can acquire, A friend had to tell me where I can view my character's abilities mid-match, crafting is still a mystery, I didn't know certain maps had special mechanics like vehicles and there's other restorative items like Heat Shields and Ultimate Accelerants the game doesn't teach you to use. It's all quite overwhelming to learn as a new player without the game telling you about any of them. Even with a friend helping me understand the mechanics and 5 hours in the game now I feel like I'm now at the bare minimum level of knowledge of the game to perform now. That's a lot of time for someone to learn the 'basics' of a game. I didn't even know this game had melee weapons in it until I saw a couple people running around with them. I haven't found any yet though. Nor have I found nay red tier items yet.

All things considered though it's a cool game and I can see why people enjoy it. I'd like to enjoy it as much as everyone else some day but so far it seems very difficult for new players to learn.

Tried a hell of a lot of shooters, this is by far the best one I've played.
Play through Doom 2016 as a tutorial and have your first playthrough of Eternal be on Nightmare mode.

Campaign is fantastic, unlike 2016 there's more than 2 levels and the bosses are even better. There are so many mechanics in this game they'll still be introducing new ones up to about the 4th last level in the game.
Master Levels are exactly what I wanted after I finished the campaign, remixed versions of my favourite with every unlock and the game never holding back. Plus they're still making new ones as time goes on.
Battlemode is pretty cool if a little bit lame since you're almost gaurenteed to face max level players. But it's still populated in Australia unlike a lot of PvP shooter modes so I can't complain.
Haven't tried the DLC yet, sounds sick though, more levels with more mechanics as far as I can tell.
Haven't tried Horde Mode either. seems fun.

Combat flow gets my ♥♥♥♥ hard to be frank with you. Seriously I like over-analysing gameplay systems and Doom 2016 was already pretty cool as a deconstruction of the genre but then here comes Eternal making it look like 2016 was a first draft. The better feedback on enemy health with the meat chunks flying off them, having enemies like cacodemons appear more as tools than obstructions by opening up opportunities to meathook off them across the map, Enemies having distinct weaknesses so you're incentivised to use your whole arsenal as the situation changes. It's just fun. It's so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fun.

Oh yeah and looking more toward the DOS games for inspiration for the general artstyle was a fantastic move. The Zombie Soldiers, Tyrant and Plasma Rifle have to be some of my favourite models I've ever seen.

Honestly this game is the closest thing to perfection of an FPS I can think of. No really, everyone has a gripe with everything they like but it's hard to find a fault in Eternal. That might be one of ID's biggest problems though, how are they gonna possibly top this with their next game? Changing anything at this point would be a disservice at this point but it's not like you can just keep working on Eternal forever, right?

EDIT:
You know what, I said this was the best shooter I've ever played, but now after playing most of the post-game content and DLC I'd wager to call it the best game I've ever played.

For some reason I'm the complete inverse of how a lot of people feel about the DLC. The Ancient Gods Part 1 starts off about as hard as the vanilla Master Levels, balls-to-the-wall hard. Exactly how I hoped it'd be. While it doesn't add much to the player's arsenal aside from a couple new runes, the additions to the enemy variety felt perfect to me. Exactly what the game needed to be just that little bit harder. Those spirits are my favourite enemy in the game man. Plus the levels are gorgeous.
The Ancient Gods Part 2 on the other hand is by no means bad whatsoever, I just feel like the DLC was trivialized by the Sentinel Hammer and I felt the new enemy types were pretty lame to be effectively invulnerable to all attack types save for 1 or two. Stone Imps specifically being vulnerable only to the Sentinel Hammer and the Full Auto Shotgun felt really odd. Like they just wanted a reason for people to use it. The other enemies like the Armored Baron and the Riot Soldier would feel fine enough if they were introduced for the full game instead of just this DLC. They feel sort of crammed in, like none of them are given a chance to really shine.

The post-launch Master Levels made my feelings on the game go from a 10 to 11. I only played the initial ones when I first posted my review. These new ones with the additional modes are amazing. I was really hoping they'd get harder and the addition of classic mode did not disappoint.

And then it got harder. Horde Mode cranked it up to 12. That last wave is the most daunting challenge in this game and is the only time I worked up an actual sweat playing a game in years. It's a bit of a let down that horde mode is always gonna be the same arenas with the same enemy spawns but honestly it took all my problems from TAG2 and undid them in the best way possible. It was so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fun. Nice free update too.

This game kicks so much ass man ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

The guns feel amazing to shoot, the skills are fun to use and the boss fights are fun as ♥♥♥♥ to fight but the enemy variety, level design and story is abysmal compared to the previous games.

But with a few year's worth of free updates under its belt like 2 raids, 3 free seasonal events which are now toggleable at will, mayhem 2.0, annointments 2.0, removal of denuvo noticeably improving performance and making the game viable to use on an SSD, crossplay and cutscene skip the gameplay has gotten a lot better since launch. Honestly having played it when it launched on Epic, it felt like it was an early access game compared to what it is now.

That and the DLC campaigns while pretty steep in price absolutely salvages the game since it fixes those shortcomings for the most part. That does mean that the whopping 135GB Ultimate Edition is pretty much the only way to play the game.

The other games in the series are still probably more worth your time and money (especially the 2nd one) but it's not like this game's not worth playing if you liked the rest.

If you want me to be honest with you, ever since the couple years worth of updates the game's probably at a point now where if you personally enjoyed Fallout 4, there's no real reason why you wouldn't be able to enjoy 76.

No really, I'd argue 76 has more going for it now than 4 has at this point. Fallout 4 tried a fair few new things but a bunch of them had minor drawbacks to them, 76 learned a lot from 4's mistakes and fixes them. Camps serve an actual purpose where Settlements felt lackluster since you'd fill them with crafting stations and such then realise there's nothing to really do in them, 76's camps have a much greater purpose to exist from player vendors, companion quests and a plethora of new buildables that you can interact with and have tangible benefits. Underused enemy types from 4 like the mole rat suiciders (of which there was a grand total of 1 in the entirety of Falllout 4) and the various Protectron types are used to much greater effect. The same thing goes for weapons, there's more than 1 Tesla Rifle and Broadsider. Plus all the weapons and enemies from 4's DLCs are all integrated into Appalachia. One of the most common things a friend of mine said when we were playing through 76 was "This [place/thing] is like [place/thing from Fallout 4] but better".

The point is 76 uses a lot of Fallout 4's foundation and builds upon it then launches itself further upwards with a tonne of really great additions of its own. There's 3 Story quest lines to pursue instead of traditionally just having 1 main quest story line like most games. New enemy types like the Cryptids and other general additions keep the combat interesting with how there are actual real boss fights and the weapon variety is one the largest the series has seen. Appalachia is genuinely the greatest open world Bethesda has made. No really, the addition of actual noticeably different regions makes exploring a million times more interesting.

All the updates have been great too, especially since they've all been free. Wastelanders brought a total revamp to every area of the game and Steel Dawn/Steel Reign have been following up on them further. Updates like One Wasteland, Locked and Loaded, and the other half of Steel Reign have been adding more systems and generally just improving things overall like free respecs, 2 camps, private buildable interiors, removal of forced survival mechanics (I kinda liked them though), Legendary crafting and the introduction of Daily Ops. I'm really looking forward to the Pitt update now.

Oh yeah and just to put your mind at ease, the game is far from pay to win. Most of the buyable items that do have some kind of tangible change on gameplay already has free alternatives. Anybody who claims the game is Pay to Win doesn't know some of the nuances or understand certain basic features of the game. For the sake of example you can only buy basic repair kits from the shop but you can just get Improved repair kits from doing boss events, you can also get the same basic repair kits by progressing through the score board and at the end of the day, nothing's stopping you from repairing items with basic materials at a workbench, there's even a perk to repair your items at a workbench better than an improved repair kit can. This example goes for everything. Collectrons function less optimally than a basic buildable extractor and the interesting collectrons are given out for free in events and scoreboards, refrigerators are less convenient and work worse than a basic perk and the list goes on. Fallout 1st is an entirely optional sub service that honestly makes the game worse, the game was distinctly made for multiplayer so you're actively removing features from the game by playing in private worlds and the free stash space has been increased more and more with each update, unless you don't break down your materials or hoard legendary berserker's walking canes you'll never use then there's practically no way you'll max out your stash space enough to warrant the paid scrap box. Seriously bulk sell your excess materials, you'll make tonnes of caps.

Honestly at the just being able to play a real Fallout game with friends is novelty enough for me at the end of the day.

There is one big bug going on right now though where people can force crash a server by repairing hundreds of camp items at once. It's kind of annoying when it happens but it's not as frequent on Australian servers as I hear it is on American ones. I've got no doubt they'll fix it sometime soon though.

So Nuka-World is one of those -big- DLCs for a Bethesda game, you know hwta to expect: new worldspace, weapons, enemies, etc. But now consider that the new worldspace itself is Nuka-World as a park and it's surrounding areas but Nuka-World itself as a location is split into 6 regions, one being your typical hub town and the other 5 effectively being dungeons of varying lengths, complexity and quality with nothing but enemies with the occasional quest relevant friendly NPC and no lore outside of terminals and notes. Outside the park there is practically nothing but a single small minor dungeon, a slightly larger dungeon you're locked out of until the final story quest and then some random mobs to fill in the rest of the area.
A huge step back from Far Harbour to be sure, it feels like we're regressing back to Fallout 3 levels of DLC content with this one.
3 Side Quests. The Star Core Hunt, Cappy Hunt and the Hubologists. Anything else was a dime-a-dozen radiant quest or something so small it wasn't even worth making an entry in the pip-boy. Plus it just felt like a huge let down for me when they're selling this DLC on a huge new worldspace with tonnes to do then having a major chunk of story content and even all but one radiant quest take place back in the base game.

If all the regions were on par with Galactic Zone I'd happily consider it the best part of Fallout 4 but as it stands Automatron is a better experience than Nuka-World.

Alright so you guys remember 3D platformers right? specifically ones from late-N64 through to mid-Wii era. You know, Mario Sunshine and Galaxy, Banjo, Spyro, Jak, etc.

Because Hat in Time is exactly one of those.

The easiest way to differ it from any other mascot 3D platformer is that this one has absolutely no flab to it and the game frequently switches things up to keep it from getting stale. There is not a single bad level and every second is an absolute joy. Feels good, looks good, sounds good, runs good, plays good. Simple as that.

DLC is absolutely worth getting too. each DLC has a new chapter and a swanky new feature. The first DLC added a Death Wish mode where the game gets some genuinely pretty difficult post-game challenges and the other DLC adds an online mode (that needs to be spiced up with a couple mods through the workshop) which is pretty sweet and lets you play every single piece of content in the game with your mates.
Oh yeah the game's still getting support from the devs through their Challenge Road system. Every few weeks they slap together a playlist of some pretty decent workshop maps, most of them having a theme they come up with on their discord. Honestly they're pretty fun and give a reason to boot the game back up every month for a couple hours.

DLC's pretty good, it was pretty cool to see Gearbox randomly pump this out after not touching BL2 for 5 years.

It plays exactly like the usual DLCs that came out half a decade ago, new areas, new weapons, new raid boss, everything we've come to expect and love. The only difference is instead of focusing on a themed gimmick like Pirates or Fantasy, The Commander Lilith DLC's story is another chapter in the overarching story of the franchise. Feels pretty faithful and is just another layer of stuff to do in an already huge game.
As a sort of 'warmup' for Borderlands 3, fans of the franchise can find some deviations from BL2's usual style and some of BL3's sprinkled into the mix. Most noticeably is Boss Designs feeling more like they do in BL3, which is fantastic.

Kind of an oddball thing though, This DLC has spoilers for Tales from the Borderlands and assumes you've played both Tales and Pre-Sequel first.

Oh yeah it being a paid DLC that costs more than any other DLC is pretty lame too but everyone had a chance to snag it for free for what felt like a full month.
The other DLCs should take priority over this one, only buy this one if you own and have played all the other DLCs, even the Headhunters. Even then, only get this one when it's on Sale.

Better than Borderlands 2 in a lot of ways. Only real way BL2 is better is that this one doesn't have as much content, exceptional amount for a standalone expansion though.

The classes are infinitely more interesting this time as all but one's gameplay is defined by their character instead of a checklist of standard videogame classes.
In BL2 all the classes were dull and read out like a checklist: Axton was the staple turret dude, Maya was the generic Healer/Mage made slightly interesting and Zero was the obligatory Stealth Sniper. In BL:TPS 5/6 of the character's growth and gameplay is represented by their backstories, Claptrap is incomparable to any class in any RPG and near inexplainable. His gameplay perfectly reflects his backstory and personality from previous games, this applies to most of the cast.
Not only that but they all play much more in-depth and interesting than any other class in previous games, somehow every skill in every skill tree blends well together enough to feel smooth while still having enough identity to differentiate them from eachother.
Our playable characters now have more meaning in the story having actual commentary in the story where previously we always had NPCs talk for us and assume what we were going to say. the characters have more individuality expressing their own personality as opposed to being blank mute faces who only express through combat quips (gross).

Weaponry is muuuuch better balanced this time around. all weapon types are fully viable at endgame where in Borderlands 2 you had to rely on abusing class mechanic and weapon gimmicks.
With a new weapon class that's very unique to experiment with parts and manufacturer differences and new coats of paint for the less impressive looking gear from BL2 this game feels extremely refreshing to play while keeping the freedom that was lost in BL2.
All gear is unique has it's purpose, BL2 had a problem where some gear could be ignored entirely and felt lackluster compared to other pieces (Relics are the least impactful and least interesting thing in that game). Thankfully TPS replaces Relics entirely with possible something more important that series staples like shields and grenade mods with Oz Kits, they even have much more variety in statistic advantages and gameplay oppurtunities than Relics could dream of.

The gameplay additions like Atmosphere and Vacuum environments brings new oppurtunities to gameplay and helps tings feel fresh and exciting while still being utilized by gear and character skills making everything blend together feeling important and fun.

All of the sluggishness from Borderlands 2 has been removed entirely, characters are immediately different from eachother where previously there would be no changes at all until the half an hour mark as evereyone gains their action skills much quicker and spawn with their own unique gear. Reviving allies was tedious and annoying where now we ahve the option to revive with our new oxygen resource keeping a much higher and exciting pace than both BL1 and 2.
New gear is introduced much quicker than BL2, Oz Kits (replacing Relics) come into play 10 minutes into the game rather than 3 hours, Class mods are 45 minutes in rather than 2 hours, Shields are 5 minutes rather than 20 minutes.

Locations and Enemies feel much more unique. Ever wondered what the inside of a Vault finally Looks like? what about that Helios base? how about the Inside of Claptrap's Mind?
Enemies are much more interetsing too. Kraggons > Skags. Guardians > Generic Hyperion. Scavs > Bandits. I will admit some wildlife from BL2 was greatly missed in this game, Varkids and Crystalisks were awesome in that game.
It's nice to see the Dahl manufacturer get some character development and see what Hypersion was like before everything went crazy.

Speaking of before things went crazy seeing how the story unfolds and how everything happens is fantastic. Seeing exactly how Jack went mad, getting to know Nakayama, finding out what happened to Athena and INAC, and best of all finding out what the hell happened to Elpis to see it so drastically different bewteen the first and second game. Quests and stuff give us more of an idea how Hyperion changed so much between games and how they got things like the Loaders and Constructors in the 2nd game.

Cryo > Slag
Australian ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ > Extremely Dated 2012 Memes
Laser & Luneshine >>>>>>>> E-Tech & Seraph
Claptastic Voyage > Assault on Dragon Keep
Oz Kits >>>>>>>>>> ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ > Relics
Scav & Classic Hyperion > Bandit & Nu-Hyperion

This game is more condenced and funner than BL2, It's just an abysmmal shame that this will always be more expensive and will never be finished. Absolutely incredible for a standalone expansion though. Grab it off a key site or something for cheap.