Recent reviews by Dr_Tschok

By far the deepest, most stylish, the best all around roguelite AND the best all around platformer AND the best all around metroidovania I have ever played.

The lore, the music, the art style - all top notch. And the gameplay is second to none. This game can be as arcade or as hardcore as you want it to be. The replayability is on the The Binding of Isaac level, if not higher.

All and all a 10/10 game and top 3 games I have ever played

Controversy: The Game

For some people who had actively anticipated Cyberpunk 2077 ever since its announcement, closely watched every trailer and got themselves hyped up beyond belief, the game turned out to be very disappointing. Luckily (I’m convinced at least) I didn’t look forward to the game much at all and the only real appeal I saw was the collaboration with one of my current favorite musicians, Grimes, who produced a song for the in-game radio and voiced one of the sidequest characters. Other than that - I really couldn’t care less about this game... But bought into the hype a week or so prior to its release and partially transferred my wealth anyway. And here we are.

Without any further ado, I’m just going to say that few games ever made me so invested in them. To make it a little more bearable to read through I’ll divide my thoughts into three different paragraphs.

THE GOOD:
1. The designs. They are absolutely stunning here; from main characters, to someone you’ll only hear a few lines from throughout the game. From dangerous and scary (Adam Smasher) to soothing and routine (Judy). Applies to the in-game street ads, everything ever so slightly related to the Samurai band (later about that) and clothing for the most part. Stellar.
2. The graphics. Alright, I’m guilty, this very game kinda made me upgrade my GPU sooner than I wanted to naturally do so. It’s mind boggling with RTX on: I’ve never seen any other game look prettier. The sights you see while driving through the city at night are worth a lot by itself.
3. The characters. Each and every from the main character cast is very memorable and well written. Whenever Johnny (and yes, the trope with the iconic character that only the protagonist can see, due to said characters being inside their head, is as old as the world, examples: “Arkham Knight”, “Tales From the Borderlands”) appears and starts talking about his terrorist past or just says something disturbing in general, you can’t help yourself but feel like he’s all for real - he’s just that much of an idealist. And you grow to love him for that. At least that’s the case with me: you either love Johnny to bits or hate his guts - no inbetween from what I’ve heard. But even the secondary characters like Takemura and Rogue are to be remembered and have countless things and unique character features to cherish them for.
4. Side missions. Just as rich, if not even richer, as the main story campaign. While some of them are lackluster and unapologetically short, quest lines such as “Dream On” and the story of a convicted murderer wanting to make a difference through his newly acquired faith are going to stay with you for a long long time. All of the secondary quests related to “Samurai” and Silverhand’s past are also a win. The bickering between the former band members feels like those are the conflicts that could’ve easily happened between any of the “days of glory longtime passed” rock bands, be it, say, Metallica or Deep Purple. Really authentic!
5. The story. Yes, as simple as that, I really liked the main story of the game and the way it was flowing. Full of memorable encounters and events, it’s the meat of the game and keeps you invested throughout. Written beautifully!
6. The symbolism. If you, as silly as it sounds, question yourself what makes a human different from god, wonder about afterlife and are curious about when does one’s life truly end - that’s the right game to feast on. The themes of faith (yes, faith, not religion, please never ever mix them together) are touched very authentically in one of the sidequests, too.
7. Audio and music. The original soundtrack is a perfect fit for this world, from the menacing and grim “V” and “Consumer Cathedral” to the banging midtempo roller of “The Rebel Path”. Radio music is also great, curated by the likes of Run the Jewels, Nina Kraviz and Grimes. The latter contributed an absolutely stunning “Delicate Weapon” exclusively for the game, too, easily my favorite from all of the originals from “Cyberpunk 2077”.

THE MEH:
1. Gameplay. Yes, as sad as it is, the game gets a little boring to play after a while which is a cardinal sin for a game like this. Vehicles feel just okay, the gunplay is borderline alright and the quickhack system is fun for a while, until you realize it was done better even in the first “Watch_Dogs” game. Only the story and the characters kept me interested in immersing myself in more of the repetitiveness.
2. Customization. Yes, sure, you can customize your character to oblivion but that’s about it. You can’t even change their haircut later on, the clothing system is revolving purely around the stats and will force you to wear things you dislike for that sweet-sweet combat advantage. Cars can’t be customized whatsoever, but luckily I never really cared about them in the first place. But I have to admit that the game really allowed me to shape and make my character exactly the way I want them to be. Even though if you can’t be nonbinary in 2077, which I assume you can’t, since everyone keeps referring to you as to a “he” or a “she” exclusively, and the game doesn’t really give you a third option, CDPR are completely missing some really important attributes of the cyberpunk genre as a whole.
3. Cyberware. Oh they advertised it as the pinnacle of videogame customization, but more often than not it’s just another way to improve your stats with no visible changes. Only a few of the implants actually change you in a drastic way. But what about cyberpsychosis, you might ask. Obviously you can’t go insane because of all of the chrome in your body like you can in the pen’n’paper rpg, that’d be way too deep for a triple A 2020 game, right?
4. Consequences of your actions. They are kinda there? Some of the things you do early on really affect the story and the flow of the later side missions but is it really game changing? Not in a slightest. Another overly advertised and underdelivered feature.

THE BAD:
1. Technical issues. RTX 3060 ti with an i5-8400 are giving me ~55-60 FPS on high-ultra with medium RTX and DLSS on, what? Talk about optimization. The amount of bugs and glitches is legendary, not even worth mentioning at this point.
2. Expectations. CDPR had it coming, really. Never seen a game advertised like that before, could even order a collaborative pizza from a local pizzeria chain packaged in a Cyberpunk themed box. The media, the trailers, the demos for the streamers; it’s very sad you can’t really see all this greatness in the game itself. The expectations were set too high and we received an undercooked product, as simple as that. And it’s no one’s fault but CDPR’s.



Conclusion: So is the game really worth playing? Yes, but not now. I’ve had a lot of fun diving deep into the game’s world and I have to give all of my praise to the designers, writers and musicians that made it all possible for me. It’s one of my new favorite universes and I would love to play the tabletop rpg now. But the amount of technical issues and broken promises is really off-putting. Just give the developers sometime to actually fix the game, might take a year or even more, and, if you don’t mind the gameplay being a little underwhelming but care about the world and the characters of the game - absolutely go for it. Now is not the time, however, yet I’m still glad I enjoyed the game seemingly a lot more than some of the people I know. Don’t have your expectation high and you will never be disappointed.

A benchmark singleplayer FPS. Being released In 2016, still looks incredibly good! Played the game a few years back on PS4 - doesn't even come close to a proper PC walkthrough, "DOOM" is simply made for the mouse+keyboard controls environment.

The story is nothing to write home about, even though it introduces some unique looking and, most of all, sounding characters (Dr. Hayden sounds just right, splendid voice acting and voice modulation, on top of that). Quickly running out of ammo, the glory kill system and the lack of health regeneration force you to constantly be on the move and literally rip and tear through the demon hordes. Speaking of which: the game establishes a near-perfect balance of feeling almost invincible yet scarily vulnerable, especially on harder difficulty settings. You gotta feel it for yourself!

The soundtrack has received enough praise already, so I won't even bother mentioning how amazing it is.

...Nevermind, I will. Another tight and punchy blend of metal and harsh electronic, just as good, if not better, as in "Wolfenstein: The New Colossus"


Overall - highly recommended, incredibly fun. Hoping that "DOOM: Eternal" lives up to my expectations too, even though a few friends of mine told me it wasn't nearly as knee deep in the dead. Sorry, couldn't resist.

This game will make you reconsider your life and seek more harmonious friendships than the one I have with the developer of the game.

A solid title, possibly has a shot to be the GOTY.

If you're looking for an old-fashioned (in the best of ways) first person shooter with a stunning and detailed world, likeable characters and engaging campaign - this is the one.

First things first, this game feels incredible with keyboard and mouse being used as the input devices; my first encounter with "The New Colossus" occured on PS4, rather unfortunately. With a controller in your hands and 30FPS flashing in front of your eyes it just simply feels like the game is being played in the way it wasn't meant to be experienced in.

Serving as the sequel to the 2014's "The New Order", "The New Colossus" doesn't neccessarily bring anything revolutionary to the table, it just gives you more of what you loved about the previous installment and turns it up to 11.

Same old characters get even more development, B.J. is more human than ever in this one, especially considering the fact that back in the day he used to be a pixelated face grinning at you without saying a single word. The biggest revelation to me, however, was the world of Wolfenstein. The amount of detail and integrations with other different forms of media used in the promotional campaigh throughout 2017 (look up "Die Kafer - Changeover Day" and "Blitzmensch" on YouTube) is to be admired.

Gameplay wise it still is a shooter with no compromises (I suggest going for "Do or die!" difficulty on your first playthrough) and some neat new features like better executed dual wielding and the upgrades you receive with the new body closer to the second half of the game. If you like the 2016 "DOOM" and/or "The New Order", you won't be disappointed.

The soundtrack is also very fitting, blending the rough and distorted guitars with high pitched synths leads during the most intense of combats. Best experienced with a decent audio setup - everything glimmers with new colors this way.

Highly recommended.

My favorite game of all time, what else there is to add... Actually, "for my only lover got a lot of nice things to say".

It all started in late 2014 when I got gifted a disc copy of the GOTY edition for my XBox 360, back then my English was incredibly weak, when I think about it, and, as the game wasn't dubbed or anything - I had little-to-no pleasure playing it and gave up soon after dealing with Boom and Bewm.

A couple of months later a new console came into my life, that very console being the controversial PS Vita. Bundled with - you guessed right - a terrible port of Borderlands 2, which would run at 15FPS, provided I got lucky. But taking the little wonder of a handheld device on the train rides and such with me forced me to play it more and more.

I should state right here and right now, I still believe that this game initially helped me step up my English a lot. Mostly because of the incredible voice acting behind the characters such as Handsome Jack(probably my favorite videogame character ever). I would play it for hours, slowly soaking up the new vocabulary and getting used to using grammar in a split of a second.

Hundreds of hours of playtime were brought to me with the PS4 port and, well, here we are now, on the most comfortable of them all, the glorious PC version.

Borderlands 2 will always have a special place in my heart, as it is one of the cornerstone pieces of media that have defined my teenage years.

Perfect for casually hanging out with friends in a fun and a slightly competitive way. Some of the mechanics are very unpredictable and game-changing. The variety of scenarios and maps is also huge, therefore the replayability comes second to none.

The Duck Game shines in a 4-person friend group.

I really needed this game in my life, especially now. Helps to sort yourself out and get some closure while simultaneously provides the opportunity to help others a tad. Basically an anonymous course of unprofessional psychological therapy. The concept is brilliant, the idea behind the game is one of the kindest.

My eternal thanks go the developers.

One of the games that stay with you for a loooong time. It's incredible how attached you become to the main character after a couple of hours playtime. I wouldn't really say it's something to write home about gameplay wise, but the story and the atmosphere are just that gripping, the soundtrack is not exactly fascinating, but it fits the game well and some of the more ambient pieces are pleasant to listen to even outside of the game itself.

OneShot proves to instantly become memorable, even though I've only given it only one complete walkthrough. It is what they call a "once in a lifetime experience" game.

Such a fun and addictive little paltformer! Haven't played anything quite like it, besides - Cuphead is simply stunning, both visually and in terms of audio. Looking forward to the 2020's DLC and will definitely make sure to finish this incredibly classy game.


Don't mess with King Dice!


UPD as of beating the game: MDHR, thank you for this game. It truly is a game I needed in my life.