Recent reviews by lord cabal

Not as good as it could've been, but still very fun. Soundtrack features only a handful of the classic songs. THPS4's career mode is just classic mode (some of the goals were inspired by missions from the original though, and some of them even have cutscenes). The pro goals they added ruin the replay value, I'm not gonna go for 100% because of them sadly.

I'd recommend getting it on a sale.

It's poker with a charming cast of characters and Tycho.

Oh and you get some cool TF2 items.

Performance is still ♥♥♥♥.
But they added back the funny bald guy so this gets a recommended from me

Not yet. Check back in a year or two.

Incredibly good game. Probably the best open-world stealth game I've ever played. It makes TC: Wildlands or any of the Far Cry games look like a McDonalds playground in comparison.

So many options and different ways to tackle outposts and missions. Even after 100 hours there were still tricks I hadn't learned, like throwing inflatable decoys of yourself (yes the game has those, and the enemy does as well) on enemies to knock them out. The enemies will have conversations, sleep at night, and switch posts at specific times. They also react to weather changes like rain and sandstorms. All of this can be used to your advantage. But be careful, as the enemy's equipment will dynamically change to counter your play-style!

It's been banged to death but the story is definitely lacking. Although a lot of cool story threads are established, none of them are resolved in a satisfying way. Important parts of the story are relayed through cassette tapes that you have to listen to on your own. The game also ends very abruptly in a way that will leave most players feeling confused. But as long as you know this going into the game it's not that bad.

Despite this there are so many stand-out moments in the game, from the amazingly intriguing intro (watched a streamer play it and bought the game immediately afterwards) to rescuing Miller and bringing him back to the base, the Sahelanthropus, the outbreak in the base quarantine zone, and the big twist at the end. The cinematography on display in the cutscenes is also great. Beautiful lightning and attention to small details. It really does feel like a movie at times. Also a character in one of the cutscenes acknowledged the camera man which I thought was pretty funny.

The graphics are great as well. Some of the textures are kinda low-res, and the game came out before PBR was really a thing. But it makes up for this with excellent use of lightning, solid character models, and effects like depth of field to hide any imperfections. It's locked to 60fps but can be unlocked by changing one of the config files. Check out tha guides.

I'm planning on exploring the rest of the Metal Gear Solid franchise now that I've play this one to completion. I've never really understood why the series was so beloved and just thought it wasn't for me, but I've changed my mind now.

☝🏻Listen up! Cuz this lesson is important.

Aside from the censored content, the game got worse in a lot of aspects in this update.

Graphics in general are downgraded, many maps are covered in fog and are unreasonably dark in-doors due to worse lighting quality. The pre-baked shadows in the game are incredibly low resolution even on highest graphic settings.

The gore system was changed, not just for corpses. The dynamic bullet wounds that would bleed are now replaced with a static bullet wound that looks very unrealistic.

Achievements were changed. If you were trying to get S-rank on all levels but you didn't have the achievement already then your progress has been reset and you now need to replay every level and get S-rank on them again.

A new "hard" difficulty setting got added and the AI swat members cannot keep up with the new suspect AI in it. In fact it feels like the swat AI got downgraded in general. They often don't react to suspects even when they're getting shot at, just blindy running into rooms. They ignore civilians and don't cuff them now.

CS gas got nerfed whether intentionally or not, It's honestly very hard to tell but suspects barely react to it at all. Swat animations (both AI and players) were changed and look very goofy. A lot of NPCs now have very shiny faces, especially in the Police HQ.

The whole update is just sloppy and makes the game worse. So no, I cannot recommend this game at all after this update.

Charming Lethal Company-like game.

It's a lot more interactive thanks to it's emphasis on physics. A lot of the slow parts from Lethal Company are shaved off, with more focus on the fun parts of the game. Levels are smaller in general but more cohesive.

Character designs are adorable. It'd be nice to have more cosmetic options other than colours though.

It's lacking in terms of level variety, but the devs are working on it and post updates on development regularly. Another complaint is that the shop intermissions can be lengthy depending on how much your friends fumble around with the grenades.

It's alright. I feel a bit let down considering how good the demo was.

Performance overall is still pretty bad. The more open levels in chapter 1 and 4 being the worst. I don't why it's so demanding given the art-style (which I do like a lot).

Chapter 1 is by far the best out of the 4-5 chapters. The game really shines when the levels are short, tight, and you have to rely on reflexes and quick-thinking to survive. Replaying those levels and trying to beat them as fast as possible is very fun.

As the game goes on it feels like it loses it's identity. Levels become more open with lots of hitscan enemies that force you to take cover (in a game about going fast!). The levels get longer as well which can be frustrating since there are no checkpoints and you die from 1-2 hits. The boss fight are kinda out-of-place and annoying, but easy to beat at least.

One more thing - the shoes. You collect shoes throughout the game which grants you different abilites when you wear them. Most of these shoes however aren't very interesting or fun to use, with some even hindering the player. Very disappointing.

The remake we deserved.

Progress carry-over from Epic Games is kind of weird though, I got most of my progress from a year ago back but not any later than that so most of the missions I've done are locked again. Also I'm not earning achievements for the things I've already done (like reach level 10 - I'm level 60 something).

There's no crossplay between Epic and Steam versions, so multiplayer is kinda dead, and the leaderboards aren't accurate. The always online thing is pretty bad too, there's often really bad stutter whenever you breifly lose connection to the services which happens like once every 20-30 minutes. I've dropped some combos because of it.

Still worth it though. Shame there will never be a 3 + 4.