Recent reviews by Trick

The funny inflation man on YouTube recommended this game. After playing it for myself, I can understand the appeal. There is a wide range of freedom to approach objectives however you prefer. It walks a fine line between simplicity and complexity, putting the player in challenging scenarios but not overwhelming him with unbalanced mechanics. On the surface, levels are structured in a basic manner but carry more depth to them once you start digging around. I received strong Postal 2 vibes whenever exploration was rewarded with alternative routes or weapons. The available experimentation with implants and weapons also contributed greatly to the experience. But most importantly, levels are kepts short. So even if I died several times in a row, I wouldn't be discouraged from trying again. Quite the opposite, this game has an engaging tone due to it's design.

The cringy woke garbage aside, this game is just a major piss-take. Everything about it is just infuriating. Missions, gameplay, achievements, you name it. No exaggeration. The activities have never been this horrendous in any of the Saints Row games. They are unnecessarily stretched out and just tedious. The devs are also incredibly incompetent at what they do. The game is littered with bugs to the point where you have to find frequent workaround yourself to accomplish the most basic objectives. I couldn’t care less about the story or characters, it’s pretty obvious that they weren’t made with much thought in mind. The characters are mere cardboard cutouts that are essentially the same archetype with a few different quirks. As for the story, there is none to speak of. Another game made to serve a brain-rotten ideology rather than entertaining consumers. I was so ecstatic to hear about Volition shutting down their studio due to bankruptcy over the failure that was this game. Good riddance, never come back.

The original Watch Dogs will always have a special place in my heart. I remember how I first played it nearly a decade ago. It was the first modern open-world game that had me engaged enough to 100% it. I’ve definitely accumulated over a thousand hours outside of Steam just playing it religiously due to how fascinated I was by the gameplay mechanics. And even now, this game has aged like fine wine in comparison to the soulless cash grabs that Ubisoft is dishing out nowadays. Watch Dogs was a very innovative project at the time and in my opinion, still is. The gameplay and missions were versatile, the story was well-crafted and had multiple layers of complexity to it, the characters had depth and were believable, and the numerous activities in the open world allowed it to feel more alive.

I was also able to play the Bad Blood DLC for the first time recently. A marvelously executed expansion of the original game that wrapped up some loose ends while setting up new themes for the franchise. The character dynamic between T-Bone and Tobias managed to elevate the story especially. By far the best comedic duo that Ubisoft has ever created. Truly a shame that they never ended up bringing them back together or following up on the foreshadowed trio team-up with Aiden. Speaking of Aiden, I never grasped the complaint regarding his. Considering the context of the story, his character is accurately portrayed. A withdrawn man with a cold exterior toward the people around him due to the loss of his niece.

That’s also why I can appreciate characters like Clara who brings out his more humane side, being his only genuine friend up to the end. And who could forget Jordi, the best comic relief character in this franchise? One of the better aspects of the sequel games. I admire how they occasionally use him as the straight man in the later entries, conflicting him with the hipster setting in Watch Dogs 2 for example. The antagonists of the first game were also significantly better. I think one of the biggest problems is how a lot of the narrative is conveyed through audio logs that you have to find. And while those form a complex story with multiple parties involved, it doesn’t get most players engaged enough to invest into it. I can relate to this since that is one of my main grudges with Bioshock 1 and 2.

Something that deserves its own paragraph is the best PvP mode that was introduced in this game. I’m talking about Online Invasion of course. It becomes pretty addictive once you experience the emotional rollercoaster that comes with it. Although just hide-and-seek, it gets your heart pumping fast. That fear of getting detected as the invader, the unnerving audio of the installation as progress is slowly achieved, the eerie sound cues that play when your target is nearby, and the entire escape phase should you end up being spotted. This mode especially makes the whole hacking concept of the game work beautifully. You must use the city surveillance to your advantage to get the drop on your target without him noticing you. In the base game, camera usage was rarely necessary but is highly efficient when playing Invasion.

It’s sad to see this franchise being neglected now. While still fun to play, I’m afraid that the sequels couldn’t quite catch the magic of the first installment. The missions became too repetitive, the story was barely present, the characters were just not interesting, and the dark and serious tone became absent. The only improvement was the hacking which I can commend them for. At this rate, I would settle for a remake of the first game that implements most of the hacking features of the later entries. The only way forward I see for this franchise is by sticking with the original cast of characters and expanding on their story. They seemed to hint at something with Aiden pulling something major in Canada. I wouldn’t mind seeing him with both T-Bone and Tobias reunite for that adventure.

This game is pure garbage, annoying on so many different levels, and a complete mistake in the first place. Somehow though, I can't hate it due to being so engaging. I believe it's a combination of how short the average run is and the RNG elements introducing a lot of dopamine hits. I would just keep grinding despite multiple fails in a row. It's quite sad how such a terrible game can engage me more than genuine great games out there.

If I had to describe this game it would be a human body without flesh and organs. The fundamental structure is there but it lacks quality and substance. It's impossible to look past the awful presentation that is cheaply clustered together like a lot of these games in the "Simulator" genre. Most noticeably would be the complete lack of animation. The developers did the bare minimum in that regard, recycling and copy-pasting them onto every NPC in the game. It feels extremely stiff after a while. What adds fuel to the fire are the frequent clipping issues you get to witness on the models. Any kind of immersion is instantaneously broken as you realize the lackluster presentation.

As for the gameplay, it was entertaining at first until it devolved into a repeated cycle of gathering resources to proceed with the main story. There are numerous points in the story where you're gatekept from continuing until you've grinded enough materials. I don't see the purpose of processing times being as long as they are in a game such as this. You're forced to build several of the same constructions only to speed up the annoying grind.

That aside, the general objectives you're given are fine. Just racing your shopping cart through the streets and beating up enemies. When it comes to NPC-related interactions, the game feels like a massively downgraded Postal game. Begging for money, urinating, flipping people off are all things I've seen before. On an unrelated note, it speaks volumes about the developer's laziness when they labeled every crime you commit as “Vandalism”. My head was shaking the first time I noticed that. They couldn’t even be bothered to add a string of text for different offenses a player would make.

The unique abilities that you’re offered can be chugged straight into the bin with one exception. The tornado is probably the only useful one, able to wipe out a group of enemies quickly. Everything else is just rubbish. The brewing is also an unnecessary addition to the game. I hardly used any of the liquor I crafted. And when I did, I was disappointed that the duration lasted barely a few seconds. Why bother brewing them in the first place when you can dispose of enemies much more efficiently using your fists?

The achievements are pretty straightforward. Although I was incredibly pissed off at how I didn’t obtain the only missable achievement at the very end of the game, forcing me to play through this junk pile a second time. I also could have done without all the collectible nonsense. Why do you torture people like this? At the very least, give the player a detector so they don’t have to look up a guide to rummage through each place on this terribly designed open-world map. Seriously, would you like some more open world with your fences?

The only positive thing I can give this game is the voice acting. Speaking of which, one of the voice actors seemed genuinely passionate about the game, even providing some ideas for the developers to implement. Take a guess at how much they bothered to implement. When you reach a point where even the voice cast can instruct you with better concepts, you know you’ve messed up. I remember how long it took them to release this garbage game. I wasn’t expecting a gem, but I wasn’t expecting a pile of trash either. The wait was certainly not worth it, let alone the money I spent. All those years in production and this is what you have to offer us? Just refund everyone’s money and apologize for what you’ve unleashed upon us.

One of the worst cases of both pay-to-win and pay-to-play I have ever seen. You merely get to play 4-5 individual levels every 2-3 hours due to the energy system. And some of these levels are god-awful to the point where you need items to aid you. Aside from that, the game keeps recycling the same mindless quests just to keep you occupied. It would be tolerable if it wasn't for the fact that you're forced to do them if you're going for 100% achievement completion.

Fortunately, these developers were so incompetent that they created a neat little loophole. You see, the ingame time is tied to your PC time. This means that if you were to set it forward by a couple of hours, your energy is instantly regenerated. If you want the maximum benefit from this, cycle through days rather than hours. In doing so, you can accumulate all daily rewards of the week in just 20 seconds. These rewards contain crystals among other useful items that greatly benefit you. It's certainly better than blowing real money on this garbage game. You're welcome.

This game made me grasp how much of a garbage franchise this is. I genuinely can't comprehend how people enjoy this trash. Even if it hadn't been for that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 'Retro Gamer' achievement that contributed to half my play hours, this game would still be a steaming pile of crap. Levels are boringly monotone and rely on the same backtracking "puzzles" to open gates. Every level is a mindless collectathon. What truly hurts is how I actually spent money on it.

The gameplay loop is what truly kept me engaged. You’re actively encouraged to gather gems, becoming stronger and getting access to unlockables in the process. And although this feelings of progression eventually wears off due to having maxed out everything, the road of getting there is what matters. What could be improved upon is the world-building itself. It feels empty and lifeless. I feel as if there should be more side content to flesh out the setting of this game.

A few bothersome things are certain elements that really shouldn’t have been in the game. Having a bunch of essential collectibles scattered through the world is a bit tedious given the world’s maze-like layout. Even if not for the achievement, these collectibles are necessary for improving your class perks. Having progression locked behind collectibles in a game like this is rather questionable. At the very least they should have given the player

Something that did tire me out throughout this game were the block puzzles and everything revolving around them. They were fine at first, but given the repetitive nature of this game, you will encounter the same handful of block-related obstacles over and over again. There was one instance where I would actually softlock myself because I couldn’t reset nor move the block from the exit, trapping myself in a small space.

Despite the fun factor, I would suggest getting this game with a discount. It certainly will keep you entertained, but I still think there should be more to it. There is definitely potential here to rival games like Stardew Valley.

Basically a fast-paced shooting gallery with pop culure references sprinkled everywhere. It did make me nostalgic for the classic Postal 2 gameplay, containing even that element of exploration for rewards. Both Rick Hunter and Corey Cruise have voice work in this game which is pretty neat. Although I wish they had added more dialogue for the gameplay itself, after the first level you pretty much heard all the witty one-liners that Dude throws out for killing an enemy. As much as I like the gameplay, it does have a few flaws in my opinion. There are often points in the game where you need to gather a specific collectible to proceed to the next area. While I understand that this game is an homage to Doom, I feel as if these gate points often end up breaking the quick pacing of the gameplay. Later on, this would become worse with levels turning into literal mazes. But I suppose this is only an issue that applies to the first playthrough. The general art direction is commendable as well. I will also give the devs props for making the achievement pretty straightforward. Not an overly long experience but in this case less is more.

First of all, I would like to thank Naic Hat for recommending this game to me. It took a bit of time getting into, mostly because this is a game from 2006 that anticipates players having a longer attention span. That 10-minute intro wasn’t a great way of introducing the player to this universe, it just left me drained reading through it. This in combination with the vast amount of dialogue thrown at the player early on made my play session very short in the beginning.

I eventually overcame that obstacle however and was able to indulge the game as it was intended. There are a lot of factors that truly make this game shine. The story while having a slow build-up had me fully hooked. This was accomplished through the elaborate world-building and characters. I grew from hating our sidekick to genuinely loving him. The world feels fleshed out and genuine with people occupying it.

And even though the unique art style and visuals are the main selling point of this game, I must highlight and applaud the narration. I believe it took me 26 hours to finish the story on my first playthrough, simply because I was fully immersed in the universe of this game. It’s an endearing experience.

A few things that did bug me were certain creative decisions that ruined the flow and pacing of the gameplay. For instance, every time you gather a consumable item, you’re treated to two notifications informing you what the item is and what it does. This pauses the game until you close both back-to-back notifications. While it sounds like a minor nitpick, it gets incredibly tedious considering that you will be collecting a lot of items. I don’t understand why I need to be informed a hundredth time when I already collected the very same item before.

The same issue expands onto the fishing game with even more unnecessary notifications. Every time a fish is hooked, you’re treated to the same dialogue to verify it. Every time you pull a fish out, you’re treated to an animation followed up by a notification informing you of your catch. Every time you successfully catch a fish, you’re asked whether you wish to continue via both dialogue and a notification popping up. Why is this necessary? It’s infuriating and breaks the flow of the gameplay.

Aside from those pace breakers, there were other issues with the gameplay such as the brush often failing to work properly or straight up registering the wrong technique. The platforming is also either hit or miss, the default momentum often times not being sufficient enough to make longer jumps until approached with higher sprinting speed.

During the end of the game when going for all the collectibles, I also had the misfortune of sitting through a series of battles, all of which taking upwards of 20 minutes in total, on three separate occasions. The combat in this game is fine, nothing too remarkable although certain bosses can be annoyingly dragged out. It wouldn’t be a major problem if it wasn’t for the fact that the longest boss fight in this game has to be fought a total of three times throughout the story.

Despite my complaints, I feel compelled to give this game a positive review. There were certain aspects that made my blood boil, but I can appreciate the game for what it is. The people who developed it had a vision and the creativity to match it. It definitely demands the player to have a long attention span since it has a lot to offer.