Recent reviews by Suicide Machine

This is just not good. And I don't get it. On one hand it tries really hard to be a remaster, despite having to do some insane effort trying to replicate everything inside of Unity... on the other, because it tries to stick so close to the original, everything that it gets wrong is just sticking out so much more and it fails to replicate many elements correctly.

What we end up with is a game in this tragic state, where on one hand you get all of the problems of original game - the wobbly per vertex animations, the less than stellar shooting mechanics and damage model (which was improved, by not by much), the junky Quake 2 AI feel. But on the other hand you also get the game where none of the things that Unity is good at are allowed to shine and at the same time all of the common pitfalls of Unity (like non-interpolated movement for the camera or other characters) are still present. Essentially - everything is wrong. Some things are just a tiny bit off - just enough so, that you notice - like the AI that seems to now run way too much and not want fight a lot most of the times or how the cutscene play out. Others are massively off - like pretty much everything related to sound balancing or conversation system that now seem to trigger everyone nearby to a point, where it's pretty much impossible to hear what NPCs say to you, when there is more than one of them.... or ambient sounds and music missing due to different approach to sound... or light flares (not lens flares!) being way too big... or movement itself that now clearly uses a capsule collider making precise platforming so much harder than it was (especially when combined with low frequency at which it updates).

And I truly believe, this game would be better off, if it threw the entire idea of remaster out of the window and tried to be more of a remake that tries to hit the key points of the original but no longer worries about sticking to close to original and actually tries to modernize the gameplay. This would also lean better into Unity's strengths of its material systems, shaders and lighting - which as it stands, seems to only look diffuse textures and prebaked, low resolution shadow maps.

As it stands now - there is a very long and difficult road ahead for the developers, if they and the publishers are hoping to get this to a point, where this is at least "a worthy alternative to the original". For now this definitely can not get my recommendation. And it sucks, cause that's 2 remasters in a row that I am disappointed with. Turok 3 done by Nightdive presented a significantly higher quality, but was extremely light on concent and terribly overpriced. This? This at least has a significantly more reasonable price as of now (which is 25% off = 69 PLN), when you consider the amount of content Kingpin has, but due to poor quality it just can not get my recommendation either. And for people who want to experience Kingpin - there is no doubt - play the original! This needs so much more work! So much, that I don't hold my hope that it will ever be fixed. It is comparable I guess to initial release of XIII (remake) and that required moving the entire project to a new developer and over a year of reworks to get it to a good state.

-- EDIT --
Light flares have been significantly improved in patch 1.0.2.

I am sadly going to say "no". 32€ (as if we were earning more in Poland than in western Europe... Valve, fix your outdated suggested prices!) for a game that takes 3.5h to beat on first playthrough, that is a "just" a remaster of 23 year old game (a good one, but still just a remaster) is really hard to justify. Yes, technically it's not "just" 3.5h, cause there is still collectables and there are some minor differences in playthrough whatever you select to play as Danielle or Joseph, but... ugh still - this is not much content and it's not of a particularly "up to date" quality for such an asking price.

Nightdive has put a solid work, even if there is still some junk there (especially broken ladders). Nothing too serious, but it's not exactly outstanding either. There are upgrades in graphics, loads of textures got reworked, models got upgraded, draw distance is higher... and yet it doesn't feel anywhere as impressive as their recent Quake 2 remaster or Powerslave. I guess part of it is just the gap between original release and remaster - Quake 2 needed to have animations reworked, meshes had awful gel-like artifacts in animation due to the format the game was using and their remaster managed to solve those and make the game look significantly better, while restoring the multiplayer and importing N64s campaign. Powerslave was a game that was ahead of its time, but very limited on original platform, so having Nightdive's remaster that just works with keyboard and mouse is already making a massive step... this? This somehow doesn't feel that massive and I guess when combined with the asking price (and me still being salty about having to pay more than in countries where you earn 3-4 times as much money on average) is a pretty big problem.

As for the game? What is there to say - it's Turok 3. Surprisingly "modern" in its gameplay, feeling definitely like a game created after Half-Life with its level design, which does a lot to make sure the player knows what to do and if it asks the player to figure something out - it has a decency to lock the player in fairly small area to limit the amount of possible solutions. Shooting works and is fun - kind of to be expected with Turok and its damage system, honestly. Story on the other hand is very basic with cutscenes almost exclusively placed in-between chapters and the ending that feels like "Oh, so Acclaim was short on money and N64 was old, so this is where we stop" and not an actual ending to a trilogy - just a cliffhanger and not even a very good one - my reaction on stream literally was just "Come on... that's it?!".

So no, I don't recommend it... not at this price point. 20€ at most - not more. There is just not enough content.

-- EDIT --
OK, had a better look - there are 2 hidden characters. Stil.... ugh - how much can you play the same levels. It's not Quake - there is not cool, smooth movement and bhops or rocket jumps that would drastically change the way you play the game. Playing the game for the 2nd time already feels like stretching the content. I don't want to play it 3rd and 4th time with secret characters.

It's a solid game, with a very enjoyable combat system, but also very short - to a point, where it took me 3,5 hours to beat. You will still have access to arena mode for a bit of "extra" content, but I don't think I would recommend it at full price. 12€ or less - sure, no problem.

Where the game really shines, is with its combat system and how it utilizes elements in the environment as part of the interactive combat arenas. In a weird way, it reminds me a bit of what Dark Messiah of Might and Magic achieved, since the game not only makes you focus on what attacks the enemy is performing and whatever to doge or counter them, but also how to position these enemies, so they can be pushed into traps, off ledges and such. And just like with DMoMM, this is also really fun... even if significantly more restrictive. In between these arenas you will do some platforming - which works generally without problems and is very forgivable.

The game's humor is also pretty fun. Even if some of the randomized jokes, repeat a bit too often. That is, if you can hear it, cause default sound mixing in the game is pretty bad and requires you to modify sound volumes quite drastically in order to have voice lines being audible and not drowned by music and sound effects. That and the standard UE4 stutter (again!) are two of my biggest issues about the game.

Overall, I recommend this game, just - again - not a full price.

I was really worried whatever the developers will be able to pull off such an usual project well, seeing as a tactical, isometric game is certainly not the first thing I would think about when thinking about games in Aliens franchise. And thankfully - they pretty much nailed it. It's not flawless, as the difficulty at times feels very unfair but the game is still very fun and satisfying to play.

In it, you are going to be controling a squad of marines, trying to find necessary resources to evacuate from the planet before the eventual doomsday timer reaches 0. Combine this with having to worry not only about resources (that you gain between days, but also find during missions) and the squad's psychological state (which decreases the longer they spend in stressful situations and on the mission alone) and you end up with an addictive mixture, where you are consistently try to push the progress as much as possible, knowing that any mistake can set you back to the last checkpoint or safehouse, which can at times be 30 min ago. It works great... and it's a shame that when the things fall apart, especially in later areas of the game, it feels unfair, due to how the timers related to encounters work and how the logic for alien aggression progress is written.

And to answer a common question with Aliens games - no, you are not going to be fighting only aliens - there are human enemies from 2 different factions. There are also some references to "engineers" but thankfully, unlike the recent awful movies - they are relatively minor. And while the new addition of one of the enemy types is a bit questionable, it is not entirely out of place knowing the events of Aliens 3.

Performance is also not too bad, although prone to common UE4 shader compilation and load stutter and the visuals are solid, especially for its price, with animations in cutscenes probably being the weakest element of the whole presentation.

In the end - I would easily recommend this game. Not sure if it has enough content for more than one playthrough, especially that I do not recommend playing it on any difficulty higher than Normal, due to how BS it can get with its timers. But as it is - it is already lengthy enough and - in my opinion - worth the asking price.

On one hand - graphically this aged very gracefully. For a generation drenched in piss yellow and brown (thanks COD and UE3) - this, despite being dominated by white for the most part, is still pretty colorful with a solid artistic style. However... what killed this game for me, is gameplay. Like many I have seen in the reviews - I feel like this really hasn't aged well. You essentially watch a cool cutscene and then the mission starts - and mission sucks. It's just a game dumping you in the environment and asking you to reach B while activating what - in most games - would be multiplayer's king of the hill points, consistently being swarmed by enemies and occasionally fighting spungy bosses - barely any level design, essentially. Then mission finishes, you get a cutscene and suddenly you are dumped to a new mission, that seems to continue from the point where you finished your last mission. I mention this, because due to cutscenes taking place almost entirely at the base, it feels like the missions and the cutscenes were created by two entirely different teams, which in turn killed my interest in even wanting to see how this story develops. Maybe, if the shooting was any fun or movement was faster and wasn't having so many animations that you can't control - maybe, I could still deal with it... but that is sadly not a case... and with it, I just can't recommend this game to anyone.

77p egg; Eggwife is a s♥♥♥post of a game. It's far from perfect, ending on cliffhanger that feels more like "we ran out of time or money" than actually feeling intentional, but for this price for a 5 hours long experience - I think it's fine. Be warned though, as a lot of the jokes it uses feel like 2000-era relicts and they are very edgy and vulgar a lot of the times. Whatever you end up liking the game or not is - in huge part - going to be relying on whatever you like this game's immature, edgy humor. You are certainly not going to like the game's graphics or sound - as they are at best - serviceable. You are probably also not going like the game's performance, as it exhibits the standard CPU performance issues typical for the overrated Unreal Engine 4. However, its level design is for the most part good - feeling very early 2000s inspired - generally linear, but with minor looping and occasional more opened section here and there - and it manages to fill out its world decently with jokes. Shooting however is pretty bad and the game's biggest issue - with a lot of weapons lacking feedback. Combine that with enemy encounters that aren't much fun either with enemies either standing in one spot firing at you from a distance or rushing towards you using the shortest possible route and if you are hoping for just for a good oldschool shooter - this isn't going to be it.

But overall - I liked the game. It barely does enough to get my recommendation and it's only because I liked the game's humour.

AC Syndicate is very underwhelming. I like its technological side - I think what Ubisoft's studios managed to achieve with London is still extremely impressive, even almost 8 years later. However, even on technical side it's far from perfect with occasional bugs that will kill your progress (especially when playing with grappling hook) and extremely unresponsive movement. What's worse - the whole implementation of RPG-like weapon stats and progression is just not fun, making every fight that is above your equipment or character level - a tedious grind.

Story wise - the game is a bit of a mess as well, stretched thin with its plot over 9 and half chapters of mostly uninspired quests that we have seen hundreds of times already in previous Assassin's Creed games. Consistently throwing famous people from history as the replacement for the lackluster plot and lacking overall objective. The split between 2 characters doesn't help much either, as their gameplay is near identical and none of them is really likable or written to have any depth. New additions like train system or horse carriages don't do enough to address all of the pacing and variety issues these games had from the very beginning.

Worse - with the whole cheesiness and ever increasing absurd setups, Ubisoft kind of killed the motivation for actually being an assassin and trying to be quiet (not that these games ever truly succeeded at it, with Ubisoft consistently being desperate to force players into combat scenarios). Finally there is a problem of essentially "nothing" happening in modern times, as pretty much everything that's happening is now restricted to a few seconds of pre-rendered cutscenes poorly tying them to actions of the player in the past.

It's a shame really that Ubisoft with its greed has gotten the series to a point, where everything is stretched to maximum, lacking motivation and grand goal, with the whole idea of overarching plot connecting the games being pretty much dead since Assassin's Creed 3. I don't know - if you want to see how Ubisoft recreated London - I guess you might check it - it's not an awful game... just a game with a content stretched incredibly thin that failed to address issues carried over pretty much from the first game in the series. But other than that - play something else... especially if you are in mood for a stealth game, as this is horrible as stealth game.

Updated after patch 1.2.

Originally I critizied the game a bit about being placed in a weird spot, where on one hand it does enough changes to annoy the strictest of purist and yet not doing enough to remove the roughest of edges that make it impossible for some gamers to enjoy the original release. Well, after 1.2 and addition of minimal waypoints on the easiest mission difficulty, I think that is no longer a case. There is still a chance to get stuck, you will still get lost here and there - but having some waypoints as a safety net is in my mind a really great way to address that issue and make sure that those, who tried playing the game and ultimately ended up frustrated by being lost and giving up on it have some aid if they are not confident in their abilities to figure everything out - while - at the same time, staying true to the original vision, where you can totally get lost on the citadel station not knowing what to do, if you dare to start your first playthrough on mission difficulty 2. Other in that - like mentioned before -
this is a great (now) significantly more accessible way to experience the 1994 classic. A faithful remake of a truly ground-breaking game that focuses a lot on environmental exploration, filled with environmental storytelling and fantastic audio logs that has since then became a standard in horror games. If anything - just still keep in mind, that even with all the help at lowest difficulty - you will still get lost to an extend and get to know each corner of the station.. so even if objective markers now helping you - you'll need a bit of patience and the right state of mind to get through it.... but it's totally worth it! Even at full price!

A truly amazing achievement. I can't think of any other RPG until now that seems to have such an insane amount of branching, such an insane amount of content and at the same time just feel an actual finished game. Everything from lighting model, animations, textures and shading work just screams quality. And while there are moments where the turn-based fighting system can drag for too long - this is pretty much the only thing that can be considered as content padding. And I only wish I had more time to actually be able to play through different branching paths... and that chapter 3 was a bit better.

At one point people used to argue whatever Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 Arena is better... well, UT master servers got shutdown in January, so that solves it!

Now play Defrag!