Recent reviews by Apparoid

Bought this when it first went on sale along with a bunch of other stuff, but it took a bit before i tried it since i needed to upgrade my graphics card then. Followed by trying it installing a framerate patch for the cutscenes and promptly abandoning it for over a year. I'm a big Indiana Jones fan but I've never played any of the games outside of Lego Indiana Jones. But I'm doing a bit of a Indiana Jones month along with rewatching the films and playing the Lego Games with my mom. Along with completing this of course i do plan to do Staff of Kings & Fate of Atlantis, the latter of which seems quite beloved.

Anyways Great Circle is developed MachineGames (Wolfenstein Reboot fellas) and is really well put together game overall. There's a certain irony to how IJ is more of a serial action flick, but the ratio of action to traversal & puzzles in a game like this is going to be longer and slower (at least compared to a film anyway) but i think being a history lover, there's something about how you play a character in a historical period, that's pursuing antiquity from much older historical periods that hits just right.

Its set in 1937 and so its after Temple of Doom & Raiders, although i found it didn't make nearly as many references as i assumed it would. Like his dad Henry is mentioned once from his own lips as far as i can tell. And as is tradition you have a Sidekick for some of the story, and whether or not you enjoy the flow of the story is going to depend on that sidekick, i think she works well. Although in the post game she has like 2 lines that kept getting said as i was finishing exploring the jungle area. I have some preferences for how a sequel would go. But talking about it would spoiler the story.

Probably the most notable and off-putting part of this for many is the game is actually 1st person, since this game looks like an Action-Adventure adjacent to say Uncharted or Tomb Raider (i haven't played either for what its worth) that seems odd considering how iconic of a character Indiana is. It also ironic i think since Uncharted & Tomb Raider are inspired by IJ. However it does work for world exploration a i think since it makes the interaction of stuff a bit more intimate which really helps with puzzles and just generally embodying the character. However your also not a silent protagonist so maybe it would have been just a good to be 3rd Person.

Gameplay mechanics work well as a package, but if you break them down peacemeal there a little bit flawed i think. The brawling mechanics are very straightforward, but also very satisfying with stuff like sound effects or the ways in which you can improvise, there's like a 100+ different types of objects you can pick up and knock someone out with. The two funniest ones to me was a Violin Bowstring and a Flyswatter. The whips usage is also great, it sound really loud and punchy like a gunshot almost, which to my understanding is quite accurate. However since i was playing on KB&M i found myself not alternating punches too much, and considering i just got off playing Punch Out (which is referenced by name only through the skill book system) you can punch with one hand really, REALLY fast. Which i don't like much as Indy is more of about haymakers and playing dirty than fast jabs, also grappling was pretty useless outside of pushing someone off a ledge which is a guaranteed kill even if its only like 10 feet high.

The Puzzle system, or i guess just the puzzles are fairly intuitive i find, ignoring the Safecode ones i only had to lookup a guide once and it was for a Tomb in the Order of Giants DLC. But its definitely a bit of a Valve Effect were its not intuitive to you then the lack of any direction grinds the game to a screeching halt and out comes the guides. My one main issues is actually not the puzzles themselves but the journal. I don't like how the menuing in it works. It could stem from a controller first principle. But if you found yourself needing to recheck a note clue for a safecode or something then it becomes abundantly obvious how bad it is. Considering you have to fully put away the note to interact with something, and if you need to check the note again, you need to open the journal, go to the quest tab, find the correct discovery/mystery chain and select the top note.

And while this is not exclusive to this game i had a bit of a frustrating time dialing my Graphics in for this one. This probably justs from wanting good fidelity 4k120fps on not a 5090, but even with a 5090 your never truly going to get a no compromised experience with these high budget games and kinda just need to accept that. HDR has been an absolute nightmare to dial in for years now, and im not sure if its my TV not being good enough, Windows, Game Implementation (like for Great Circle it might need full Raytracing for the HDR contrast to work properly but i turned it off due to really inconsistent framerates) or it might be my personal preference just wanting thing to be well lit and contrasted whether its a dark or bright scene and HDR grading simply doesn't do it how id like. Maybe one day buy a Switch 2 and try HDR on this TV using that to see if maybe its PC HDR being a mess.

Oh one last thing, the acting is fantastic, especially from Troy Baker who play Indiana. However i think its get glazed a bit too hard as being just like Young Harrison Ford or sounding exactly like him. And to be quite frank he doesn't in either respect, he's not the first to do an impersonation of him for Indiana or Han Solo in the video game space and he won't be the last. I can easily tell its not Harrison, however its also not to tell its Troy Baker either. And the silver lining is he does a great job playing the Character, just not impersonating the actor. A good comparison to make there is probably Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo, and i think Great Circle does a better job than that since its Mo-Cap & Troy Baker doesn't need to look like Harrison Ford or anything.

Overall i had a good time, i wouldn't say it blew me away, but id like to see sequel set during WW2 since the franchise avoids it like the plague for some reason.

Im a giant RDR2 fan, and i genuinely never expected this to actually get a PC port, but of course it did and so i played 40 hours worth (got as far as Act 3 of the maingame) before dropping it for a year until now. It has its upsides to its sequel and simple shortcomings, but it is a great game and i had more fun with it than older grand theft autos for instance, which might be saying something as i already knew the story from watching it.

Achievements were sometimes a pain, such as the gambling minigames. Had some bad luck with Poker & Liar's Dice (honestly i might play this one IRL) wereas Blackjack doesn't require you to do anything other than leave the moment you made profit, which the same can't be said in RDR2... And i can't speak for how bad getting a ringer in horseshoes might be. As i got it on my second throw trying to go for it XD

I did get to experience Undead Nightmare completely for the first time and it was reasonably interesting, for its 100% there are 6 creatures you have to get lucky and find, and while the first two horses were fine, i missed my first chance at the third one because i misjudged it as not being the real horse, went around a hill to check, and by the time i realized it was the horse and came back, it despawned... ended up circling around all of Nuevo Paraiso like 5-6 times to get 2 of those creatures.

So first it should be clarified that this review is more for Mafia III classic for reasons explained in a second, im also going about this review as more of my experience 100% the achievements, which heavily impacts my opinion of this one compared to Mafia II, which i got somewhat ruined because of them.

Since achievements are completely screwed on the latest patch, were progress on many of them don't save over multiple sessions, just the single one your doing. Luckily a fix of sorts were you install a very old patch and fully disconnect the game from the internet solved that. Even seems to save progress like total money spent or takedowns over several playthroughs. Leaving only a couple of normal game bugs ill go over in a minute. There are 3 pairs of achievements that are so mutually exclusive you have to do 2 full playthroughs to get them. So i went and did a bloodthirsty rush through the story and leave one underboss alive playthrough so i wouldn't get mentally bogged down with it. (i went with Burke, not Vito)

The only serious bugs i experienced was getting through the backdoor on "Burn Like Napalm" which was problematic the first time and second playthrough i was lucky and got a successful pat down first try. An infinite loading screen at the very end of the game were you get to choose an ending, and the one i wanted to do was the bugged one. On my second playthrough i nearly lost my entire save during the DLC mission "All for the Blessed" the game only maintains a single save profile, and the mission didn't seem to like loading checkpoint because it would always crash on load, especially when rebooting the game. Luckily it seems you can make your oldest checkpoint your newest one by renaming save files and get through it. And ironically my second infinite load screen was finishing Burke's Side Missions which also happened to be my last achievement because i didn't bother finishing it during my rush playthrough XD

Second playthrough was a more thorough one, including wiretapping everything and unlike the previous 2 games. This one took a real focus on being an open-world game, and repeating buildings aside, it really jams the city with unfortunately kind of repetitive content. I was able to enjoy the process of it. But back when i first played this game i was half way through River-Row before i quit. Not realizing there was 7 more districts with the same gameplay loop after.

From a 100% perspective i think the game might be more digestible if the city was smaller Or just had more tailored content, having to attack the main safehouse of a racket twice (unless you actively avoid doing so with the help of wiretapping) didn't help. Because the actual missions, narrative, driving and shooting (reminder i hate excessive driving and sometimes finished a whole district by just jogging about) heck even the stealth was pretty nice. Compared to Mafia 2 the DLC's were actually really well made. I think even the stealth was pretty engaging.

but even if your not trying to do everything, there's too much tedium in the open world missions, and that's probably why the game isn't remembered as much as it probably should. As flawed as the gameplay loop can be, Hanger 13 does a fantastic job of delivering its own premise. Were you systematically take down the entire mob in a city district by district and reap the rewards of doing so. I'm on the fence if its my favorite or not, but maybe with some heavy modding it could be.

The first walking simulator, and in the grand scheme of them i think its quite bad. Its trying to be a piece of lucid art, and to be fair it is. But i have a hard time complementing stuff that is grotesque for the sake of it, or in this games case. Being really dreary and depressing to go through especially considering what actually happens if you take the facade of artistry away.

I think its more a stance i developed over time, but feel good stories have a very important place when you start to think about how depressing the undertones of many stories are. Also compared to other games in the genre, its actually just walking with no sprinkle or interactivity. Personally i would rather recommend someone Stanley Parable or Firewatch off the gameplay interactivity alone, not to mention the writing is simply much more fun.

Democracy is Glorious

Okay i got a long story to tell with this one. When it comes to the first 10 Traveler's Tales Lego Games ( the ones before voice acting) There's only 3 i hadn't played before, Pirates of the Carribean (because it was crashing on the first level) and both Harry Potter games which i didn't really get invested in the films at the time.

Fast forward to this year and while introducing my mom to various kinds of games, i figured lego games would be fairly straight forward as for the most part its just a thumbstick and 4 buttons, which in lego harry potter's case is not entirely true as you have to switch to the right spells and the dueling in 5-7 is a bit time sensitive. But i figured it would be a good motivation to do some games i never got around to, i also ended up rewatching the films and enjoying them wayyyy more than i originally did.

After a story playthrough of the original version of Years 1-4 and i discovered there is a collection with achievements that released last year, which turns out is a slight remaster going from 7th to 8th gen consoles that i guess got ported, and so this marks the first time I've bought an extra version of a game i already own just because it has achievements.

Overall with both of these, gameplay wise there definitely in my top 5 when it comes to mechanics and how the levels and hub are structured, as i like to 100% these games and the less time spent replaying levels for minikits the better. I would definitely put these on a similar pedestal to Indiana Jones 2 (my favorite to 100%) i also think one of the most charming things about these 2 specifically, is they have shorter levels with tight rooms and almost everything you interact with animates in some way, and thats not even mentioning the sheer volume of really comedic vehicles it has. Such as flying pumpkins or stone golems, which my mom really took a liking to.

I think i liked the execution of environments and levels better in years 5-7, but i do much prefer the sheer labyrinth of rooms that Hogwarts has in years 1-4. Although i did experience a 100% softlock pretty far in 1-4, so i had to play the story 3 times, and 100% almost twice. So that, along with 1-4 having a bit too much harry potter theme in it, makes me prefer the 2nd game. But i think the true tragedy of this collection is it should have been something akin to Lego Star Wars the Complete Saga and mesh the 2 games into one, combining the hubs, characters & spells into one massive game, as opposed to a glorified launcher to 2 games with some achievements slapped on.

From a technical perspective, i don't think the collection is a real improvement to the original pc ports at all. They are locked to 60hz AND 60fps (compared to the originals being locked to 75hz with an uncapped frame-rate) but for whatever reason windows scaling is directly tied to the games render resolution, so if you have say 200% scaling on a 4k monitor, your 4k game is actually going to be rendering at 1080p in a 4k window. They also have less video settings within the games options menu than the original such as motion blur or depth of field, despite the settings text files for both versions being identical.

The collection does have better lighting alongside some DLC characters and slightly improved character selection, hints and tooltips about what abilities characters has. And atleast with Years 5-7 i experienced some stutters and hitching on the original game which prompted me to use the collections version instead. But overall i can't recommend this version even with steam achievements as they didn't even bother to fix any progression related bugs and its just more annoying to work with compared to the original 2 games already on steam.

Ahh what can i say about this game its one of my childhood favorites and its pretty much what star wars games should be. As it does need to feel like star wars but not nessecarily a star wars film, which allows for a game like this to have its own distinct feel with its music and gritty visuals and your squad (who has quite good humor/dialogue as well as ai for the time) who truly feel like your small men in a large war, even though you do make a number of big accomplishments. Would highly recommend buying on a sale and playing at some point, you wont be disapointed, although remember to install the graphics fix.

Although i could make some little critiques, a couple i could think of is the courser in the menu, and the other is well because of this game being made before revenge of the sith and it portraying the beggining of the battle of kashyyyk some small innacruacies, like how the advisor is in phase 1 armor, or how there is 12 or so Acclamaters deploying V19's in the later war, when you and i both know they probably sent like 5 venators in the film. Oh and it also ends on a cliffhanger that never got continued with another game and so had to be done in a comic.

after a recent dinput8 fix for 64bit windows 10 systems it seems to work almost perfectly now, other than a crash that can sometimes occur when launching a campaign mission. anyway on to the game itself, i love it not quite as good as the original on the ps3 and wii (ive been playing the wii version on dolphin with a keyboard control scheme which is almost the same in this) in the form of 2 less missions, too many gimmicks for me to play all the campaign missions a fair shair of times, no standalone modes which could have balanced the super gimmicky missions, not able to unlock the BA1 ace skins outside of multiplayer, from what i know of there isnt any gameranger type program that supports this game, a certain track being played way too many times at the beggining of every mission (you know which one im talking about), Repairing the plane isnt a 4 button combination anymore its just after checkpoints, teach's ability is litteraly useless in this game (it was amazing in the last game with tom) because defensive weapons and besides enemy planes are easy to catch in a dogfight turning competition, and the map cutscenes are noway near as interesting as the first game and if your wondering what these are https://youtu.be/csXnP4pZDg8?t=57, and finally really inconsistent stats that dont really seems correct when you fly them in game (like for example the j7w shiden should have like 10 manuverability)

on the good sides i had soo many goodbumbs on my first campaign run i couldnt count it. after playing probably 1000 hours on the wii version of BA1, playing this on the pc felt soo nice to have 60 fps and much better visuals. And the sound oh my gosh, like, i listened to the soundtrack of this game that was on jason graves's soundcloud and now that ive listened to them ingame they are actually quite different like they where different recordings but i loved the remaster of heavy water (it doesnt have an actual name but i call it that) and the BA2 remaster of bombing run over normandy (that being this http://www.jasongraves.com/wp-content/themes/jasongraves-farcryprimal/scripts/jplayer/musicplayer-single.php?id=22 warning LOUD), i do also like how they made franks ability much better for thorpe to the point where its the best out of all 3 abilities, i also like how they make you able to select how many wingmen to guard or attack instead of all except toms ability, i like how they got rid of the acceleration mechanic as it seemed pointless, and finally i like how they actually synced the dialog in this game as the wii BA1 never really did (ps3 BA1 fixed it by playing the clips really fast which seemed very unnatural but worked okay)

so at the end of the day if you played BA1 on xbox or pc your going to like this game alot
and if you came from the wii or ps3 versions you may be a little mixed about some of the things

Half life 2 is a first person single player campaign shooter it its own sci fi on earth universe i is very good at that with a very engaging story and i only really have problems with there being a little bit too much puzzels and not enough dialog.\

i also want to see barney taking a lead instead of alex in ep 3 or hl3 or whatever the continuation will be

it can be frustrating if your new to CS but i find it very fun me using the scar or just a bison or duel barret's with storm the front perfict