Recent reviews by kipados

Update: This previously negative review is now positive. The bots are finally gone after five years. Let's hope it stays that way. If you've ever wondered if you should try this, do it. One of the greatest games of all time even 15+ years later. Outside of making your account premium, hold off on spending money on this game for a while to see if the bots stay gone.

Maybe the greatest and even most important class shooter of all time, but I cannot recommend it when the bot crisis has made Casual completely unplayable for over four years now. The fact that the game is still as popular as it is while the match quality is so low is a miracle. The half-measures put in place to fight the bots either make the experience worse (Free-to-Play players can't even call for a Medic while bots just use stolen premium accounts) or can't keep up (bots flood into servers too fast to kick all of them). The bot crisis has been so bad for so long that most players don't even realize there's an epidemic of regular old cheating in Casual as well.

Valve is a company that makes far too much money to act like there's nothing they can do about their non-functional product that they still ask your money for. This is a fantastic game neglected by its developer.

It's a 4X game that doesn't take 12 hours to play, an RTS that relies on adapting to an antagonistic terrain and strategic deployment of units rather than APM and memorized build orders. It's at its core a hybrid of these genres and neither of them totally, which is both the root of my love for the game but also the reason for so many negative reviews you may read. Your territory, your cities, your army make-up, and your tech order will be different every game based on what resources are readily available or what you can politic your way into. There are many win conditions to go for, and your win con or even approach to play may pivot on a dime based on what your opponents are up to.

Included in its variety is Spice Wars's other strength: Flavor. Each faction is different in dozens of ways, all shaped by who they are in the novels. The new Ixians play a shadowy game manipulating the entire lobby's tech trees and treat their political standing as a resource. The Harkonnens oppress their own people to squeeze extra resource production while pumping their units with harmful combat drugs. The Atreides are the archetypical "vanilla" faction best for learning the game, but even they stand out with their abilities to peacefully annex territories and make quick alliances with neutral factions. The Fremen own the planet until its been colonized enough, and can harvest from it freely or move about it quickly and unseen, deadly in small groups and able to spark rebellions in enemy territories.

Conquest mode is not a linear narrative retelling of Dune, but instead a collection of interesting scenarios that challenge the player to learn different approaches to their faction. This, to me, is the right choice-- Spice Wars is at its core built as a Free for All game where you engage in the fantasy of playing your favorite faction or challenge yourself to learn a new one that feels completely different.

If you're hoping for a story-driven game in lock-step with the lore, you're already in the wrong place with an RTS arena where houses who have never been to Arrakis can blow up Duncan Idaho with nukes while in an alliance with Liet Kynes's Fremen. Spice Wars is its own thing with its own feel, streamlining two genres I love while injecting enough faction-fantasy that the result is a game unlike any other, and at its core: Dune.

By Ogden's hammer! What savings!

BPM is an absolutely joyful title. Its groover-shooter gimmick drew me in for what I thought would be a ten minute test run and didn't let me go until easily 2 hours later. It was initially difficult to pick up, but after the first awkward minutes I was clearing rooms effortlessly. The key to BPM is to stop overthinking and lose yourself in the music. The soundtrack has invaded my dreams and my everyday life, and as soon as I quit to desktop I immediately want to go in for one more run a few minutes later. This is one of the most solid and fun gameplay loops I've ever experienced, and every boss encounter feels like a celebration. If you're thinking about it, pick it up! More people need to be talking about BPM.

FTL is a game I still pick up on a regular basis years later. It's a unique and interesting twist on roguelikes that forces you to think ahead and think on your feet. The pause function is invaluable in tense and time-sensitive situations, and the last boss fight will wipe the floor with anyone who is even a little unprepared. This is especially true with the Advanced Edition content, which was added to the game in 2013. There is some mod support, since fans have created the modding tools. It also has a fantastic soundtrack. The perfect game to unwind or kill some time with. Highly, highly recommended.

Immensely difficult, immensely fun, and immensely addicting, Risk of Rain is easily my surprise favorite game of the season. I have easily put in 22 hours since I bought it during the holiday sale, and I've been playing a lot of co-op as well. Unfortunately, the game uses direct IP connect for multiplayer and zero mod support, but other than that and some latency, I've had no issues with it. You unlock something on every playthrough, even tens of hours later. The characters are unique and play very differently from one another, synergizing well with different skills. Artifacts (togglable game modifiers) are an interesting touch that change the game too. Risk of Rain is easily worth your time, and remember to play with a controller.

More of the same from Borderlands 2, but with some great new additions. The Slam ability is incredible and the characters are all fun to play. The game feels like it drags once you get 15 quests in Triton Flats in the middle, but after, especially after arriving on Helios, the story and its humor pick up immensely. This game doesn't feel nearly as wide in scope and scale as the other games in the franchise, but it has a surprising amount of replay value and some very memorable moments. The narrative didn't feel as fleshed out as it could be to me, but I appreciated the introduction of so many new and interesting characters.

Some animations are terrible right from the get-go, but the story is entertaining and creative. Oddly enough, the animations and frequency of graphical oddities improve as the game goes on, but it makes a bad first impression. With no puzzles to solve, the challenge is in thinking quickly about how to act and who to trust. It's a good action point n' click, and I'm looking forward to the next episodes.

Don't believe the complaining. The streamlined web-swinging is an immensely enjoyable experience, and once you understand web-rushing, you'll be flying across New York at incredible speeds with incredibly acrobatic moves. This is a game that makes you feel like Spider-Man more than any other I've played. I also enjoy the stealth aspects, though they make the game too easy. I had severe crashing problems my whole first playthrough, but the auto-save feature meant I was only minorly inconvenienced. I have experienced no crashes on my second playthrough, oddly enough. Recommended buy, but buy it on sale.

Marking a new era for point-and-click adventure games and interactive fiction, The Walking Dead creates characters that you can care about, fine crafted pacing that will catch you off guard, and an intricate web of dialogue choices that dramatically affect your relationships with other characters. A day after I bought it, though (I was mostly through episode 3 of 5,) it stopped launching, and when I can get it to launch, the settings had reset and the game cannot detect my save. There are no working fixes right now. When it works, it works, and is a 5/5 adventure game, but when it doesn't, it really doesn't.