Recent reviews by Badlek

I am loving this game so far. The graphics are STUNNING. ARK has never been this immersive to me. It is like reliving playing ARK for the first time again, which is not a chance you often get. That said, I cannot in good faith recommend this game in the current state. I rarely write negative reviews, and it hurts me to do it for my favorite game, but I have to be honest here.

1. You really do need at least a 3000 series card to run the graphics. I barely get 70 FPS from my 4090 on max settings, which is scary given that there is no better card out there. With DLSS and frame generation off, I get 40 fps. yikes!

2. Crashes VERY frequently. I have lost progress numerous times so I now save every 3 minutes in fear. This alone makes in quite unplayable. I dont know if it has to do with my updated driver, but today in particular, I crashed over 10 times in 2 hours of gameplay. The game is still quite unstable.

3. The Nitrado contract to monopolize servers is a disgusting decision. I will not pay them simply out of spite. A server hosting service should earn a monopoly by being the best one out there via competition, and not by cheating like this. I run ARK SE servers on my own hardware and finding out that I can no longer do that almost made me not buy the game.

I should note that I play ARK solely co-op or single player (no official or large servers), so I don't know of any flaws when it comes to the multiplayer aspect of public servers.

I am still going to keep playing this game in single player, because it is an amazing improvement over ARK SE, mainly with the graphics, but also dino pathfinding, building, and more. If they fix the frequent crashes and performance issues (which I expect they should within the first few months, you cannot expect a new game to be bug-free), I am willing to overlook the Nitrado situation and change my recommendation to a positive one. I hope Ill be able to do that soon.

I only have 130 hours, which is considered pretty small, but Ill still give my opinion.

I have never set foot on a public or pvp server. I don't see this game as multiplayer-viable in the same way Rust is. Many may argue, but I think this game is best played with immersion into the world and lore, whether it be playing singleplayer, or co-op with a friend. The only multiplayer I would consider is some kind of smaller roleplay server which isn't ruined by toxic players.

So far I've only played co-op with friends on our own server, and it has been an amazing experience. If you are fascinated by the dinosaur era, then this game will captivate you very quickly. Sure, it has its bugs, and maybe after a couple thousand hours it might lose its magic, but I can say that thus far, for the money I paid, this game is just as awesome and novel as it was on the first day I played it. This game gives you a handful of maps to explore and master all part of a single backstory, and some more community-made maps which are unrelated but equally awesome. The dinos are very well made. Sure, they get stuck on trees sometimes, and clip through bases occasionally, but that's just part of their personality you're gonna have to accept. Their animations are very well-done.

There is much to criticize once you get bored and lose the awe factor. The graphics are certainly beefy, and there are a few bugs which havent really bothered me in single player, but might be game breaking on servers. But that said, I dont recommend this game to play on large servers.

Bottom line, if you found yourself feeling sad when you finished all the jurassic park movies, this will be the perfect and infinite continuation. Beware though, you might lose a lot of time.

When looking for a fun strategy game to play on my mac, I searched for a long time with no luck, until I finally found Northgard. It is a game that has never come up on my radar but I gave it a chance. Within the first few hours, I fell in love with its unique style.

This game is not meant to be an open ended hour-long empire building game but rather provides an intense and entertaining match-based experience. My brother and I have been dueling on small/medium maps, sometimes with AI, and matches like that typically last 1-2 hours. This allows you to take a break and enjoy the game without the fear of losing an entire day to it.

Onto the game itself. Northgard is themed around vikings. You pick a clan (each clan has unique abilities) and spawn on a randomized tile-based island map. You start with a town hall and some villagers on a starting coastal tile with everything else dark. You build various buildings and assign villagers to become specialists (ie woodcutters at a woodcutters lodge, or scouts at a scout camp) at those buildings. As you explore new tiles, you may colonize adjacent ones to your territory as long as they are free of NPC enemies (ie wolves, bears, undead, etc). Each tile is large and allows for you to build 2-4 buildings on it. Each tile also has some unique value to it. Some tiles may have food resources, or forests for wood, allowing you to build special buildings there or gain some kind of bonus. You will also find NPC civilizations trading with whom also gives you unique bonuses once you befriend them (or you can wipe them out if you want).

There are a number of ways to win the game. You can destroy all you opponents. You can win by Wisdom by having the most technology unlocked in the research tree. You can win by fame, which is acquired through certain special buildings, capturing wolf dens or draugr tombs, and by colonizing tiles. You can win by trade, which I cant say much about because Ive never gone for that victory. Lastly, you can win through a unique tile that generates with each map (ie, sometimes there might be a tile with the Yggdrasil tree on it. Capturing it is very hard but if you take that tile, you win).

You control your armies and villagers on a precise level, meaning you can select and direct individual villagers. Each match in Northgard is rarely spent waiting and almost always has you thinking and about your next move or otherwise performing it. Each match may start out relatively similar but becomes unique and interesting after the first 30 min, and the endgame, which is about the last 30 min to 1 hour, is always super fun.

This game might not satisfy your cravings to build a huge civilization, but for a sufficiently immersive match-based strategy experience, it rocks!

Criticism: You can't rotate your camera, but this isn't a big deal

Played the game twice, once alone, and once with my brother. Now Im playing it again for a 3rd time. Amazing story which will capture you and have you sinking hours into it non-stop (in a good way :D ). Definitely recommend giving it a go

The level of detail is absolutely amazing!
The game never breaks immersion for event a second. Harvesting plants, skinning animals, and searching people all have animations. There is no moment where you just "do" something by pressing a button and it just happens. Everything has a motion for it.
The map and environment is gorgeous and the campaign is interesting. Although the side quests can get repetitive, it doesn't draw away from the main game!

Its rare that you get such a quality horror experience, so don't let it go to waste! Wait till its dark, close your door, put on some good quality headphones, and play this game. Doing this, I was able to relive the terrifying feeling that horror games bring, which for me has been going away more and more as I played more horror.

Shoot police = fun

Nothing better to do than drive trucks on a highway while rethinking my life choices

As much as people seem to hate this game, I really enjoy it. The graphics are amazing as usual with far cry games. The story is a mix of action and mystery. I am about half way through and none of the excitement has been lost. This review is coming from someone who hasn't played far cry 5, but regardless, this one is amazing.

I absolutely love this game. No other horror game has ever came close to giving me the same feel and satisfaction as this game has. I beat it first time on hard, and now I finished it on Insane. I still am gonna play all the challenges and additional content so I'm far from done. This game isn't for everyone, but the atmosphere and space themed ambience along with the smart alien and creepy androids, its a perfectly made game. Although I can say that it feels way too lengthy and drawn out towards the end, I think that its even better that way since you get to enjoy the masterpiece longer. Definitely recommend at least one play through. This is a horror game classic