Nylige anmeldelser av jercules

It's buggy and fun.

We are so back!

SnowRunner is a game where shortcuts end up taking longer than the long way round...

A simple game design with a very addictive game play loop that I didn't think I would enjoy but here we are. It's a great game to relax and unwind with until your truck just flipped 5 metres from your last delivery requiring a three vehicle recovery effort and the last remaining ounces of your sanity but this is fun. I am having fun.

Highly recommend putting on a podcast or audio book just letting the odometer count the kilometres.

The Soviet Fallout 1 & 2, with mushrooms!

Gmanlives brought Terminator: Resistance (TR) to my attention and I am glad he did.

I really did enjoy TR, in the age of yearly CoDs and Battlefields, it is great to experience a different yet familiar IP that is the Terminator universe. I think most people would agree that the Terminator movie we have been chomping at the bit for stems from those 'future war' scenes from Terminator 1 and 2. Watching those as a kid I just wanted to know more about that gritty could be world.

And no, Salvation didn't count.

So when I learned of TR I was already interested. Now I'll be the first to say TR isn't perfect. far from it, there were little niggling issues with bugs and controls and the game at times felt like a clunky mad minute in a smash and grab simulator as you try to grab the innumerable 'trading resources'.

The visuals are good for the time if not a little bland in some areas, the character models look fine and the weapons display a level of detail expected these days.

But the sounds. My God, the sounds. This is where TR feels like a game made by fans for fans. The chattering of the plasma weapons, the noise of the machines, especially the aerial hunter killers, it captured those movie moments.

As a shooter TR is quite basic but again in our current time, it is almost a breath of fresh air from hyper realism or attempts at said facts. We're shooting killer robots with plasma guns to a kick ass sound track.

The story is quite interesting and could catch the unwary off guard for the first half but enjoyable.

The hands down most memorable moment of this game for me was a certain missions where you are unable to protect yourself from the 'Terminators' and have to avoid them. That was quite hairy!

Overall, TR is a decent shooter set in an amazing IP and really draws you in if you let it. Fans of the first two films rejoice, we have our Future War experience. And kudos to the developers, looking forward to what your next foray is.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 (SGW3).

The first two games in this series had been hit or miss. The original was entertaining but underdeveloped. The second was a step in the right direction with greater scripting to the missions and rework to the ballistics system.

I had hoped the third would be the penultimate vision of the Ghost Warrior franchise. Unfortunately, it is not.

SGW3 fails for me on several levels. As a long range and PRS shooter in my spare time, the key phrase in SGW3, "sniper" is woefully inaccurate. Distances feel far shorter than they displayed. The weapon models themselves are of decent detail but I don't understand the developers reasoning of putting so much junk (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥) on all the weapons and attachments.

Many of the weapon models and the majority of the optics suffer from this too. From zip ties and elastic bands to pencils taped to the sides, the developers have tried way too hard to make their models look unique; I wouldn't have half the crap they do on my rifles.

Next lets look some minor details, the ammunition. SGW3 boasts a lot of different calibres with a diverse number of types ranging from "sniper bullets" to luring, explosive tips and armour piercing. I'm willing to suspend disbelief for some of the more sci-fi types but the models for the ammunition would cause anyone who has actually seen a real bullet to have an aneursym. The "sniper bullets" feature solid turned projectiles that look ridiculous which look like they are ribbed for your target's displeasure and what I can only call "speed holes". If any of the developers even bothered to search for "match grade ammunition" or hell, "sniper bullets" they might have been able to identify that projectiles are simple.

The armour piercing ammunition look like scaled down 105mm or 120mm tank ammunition even down to the paint scheme. Ridiculous. I was half expecting the bullet game to show the whole damn bullet (case and projectile) flying through the air.

The bullet cam shows nothing amazing especially those familiar with the Sniper Elite series. I disabled the bullet cam after the first dozen or so shots because it only seeks to disrupt your ability to realign on a second target quickly.

We have multiple rifles using the same "7.62" ammunition which I can normally forgive but there are too many other issues that have gotten on my nerves with this game to ignore. .300 Win Magnum, 7.62x51mm and 7.62x54r are all different natures of ammunition. The only commonality is that 7.62x51mm and .300 Win Magnum can be loaded with the same actual projectile but even this is uncommon.

One more on the shooting side of things because terminology goes a long way. If you "salvage" an enemy sniper's rifle, you can recieve "Bullet heads". Bullet heads? You mean projectiles right? These may not seem like much, but if you can't even nail down the simple things, how can they even make a successfuly game out of this? Well I wouldn't worry because they didn't.

The setting of the game at first seemed interesting. I've always held a big interest in European conflicts and the Russian invasion of Georia in 2008 was one I followed closely. The game world is gorgeous but it feels so dead. There are no enemies outside of predetermined locations and even when you do find some, they are hardly a challenge. Their AI is poor and will gladly stand in the open, asking no one in particular why their mate's head just exploded.

There is little variety in the side missions and most do not identify as a mission until you're already on top of it. Meaning any chance at stealth is already out the window as you're forced to mag dump your AK just to get to cover.

The characters are a string of tropes and cliches. Conversations sound like they were written by someone who hasn't held a real conversation in five years. Characters' motivations are are fickle as hell. I can get ANYONE in Georgia to help me just by repeating these three magical words.

One bloke plays a game of Russian roulette for the life of a prisoner, himself and you and knowing the chamber is loaded, just blows his brains out like it was a given. This guy was on the screen for all of like thirty seconds after being alluded to being the key to everything. I still don't understand what I achieved through doing so.

One of the reviews I read on here before I took the plunge said the story was great. Great? Were we playing the same game? And if you can't guess who the mystery sniper is in the first five minutes, uppercut yourself.

The only saving grace is that the game does look pretty but it is an empty shell I cannot recommend anyone buying this game at full price if at all.

Quantum Break (QB).

Maybe I'm just not as active in the gaming community as I used to be but QB was a surprise release for me. I recall Steam updated overnight and when I logged in QB came up in the news window. The premise was simple enough, control time, defeat the bad guy and save the day.

I've always been a sucker for a good story and any story relating to time travel or altering the past already piques my interest. You control Jack Joyce, someone who we don't actually know all that much about. Jack's parents were killed when he was still a teenager and this saw Jack become estranged with his talented brother William. His best friend works for Monarch and has called him to the Riverport University at 4am for an urgent reason pertaining to his brother.

QB is interesting in that the game consists of five separate acts and between each Act there is a live action segment that allows the player a view into the background dealings of the Monarch Corporation and characters that will become pivotal to the outcome of the story.

The game prides itself on a system of choices that it refers to as "Junctions". A junction occurs at the end of each act, prior to the live action segment. During a junction, the player takes control of the antagonist and has two choices set before him. You can preview each choice before making a final decision that the narration alludes will have far reaching implications.

These implications were sort of a letdown. From my play through of all choices, these choices normally manifest in Jack have a different third wheel throughout the game, different radio conversations and emails to discover. At most we see several scenes where civilians either voice their disdain over Monarch's heavy handed actions or rat Jack out because he's been painted as a terrorist by Monarch's PR campaign. The story overall is interesting enough to keep you chipping away to learn more. There are so many random events that only become clear in the final chapters of the game that will make your subsequent play through all the more interesting.

But enough of the story, let's get to the gameplay. QB features a standard run, gun and cover system. Weapons range from your basic hand gun, submachine guns and shotgun to a heavy pistol, tricked out submachine guns and marksman carbine to name a few. The truly game changing aspect are Jack's powers.

As a result of being bitten by a radioactive, time traveling spider... Jokes but Jack gains supernatural abilities that allow him to manipulate time. The game is based around the concept of time ending and it is here we experience "stutters" where the world seemingly stops for Jack who is able to move normally as everyone else remains frozen.

Jack cannot control stutters but he can use them to his advantage to out manoeuvre his enemies who will be confused once the stutter collapses only to feel like Jack has vanished from their sight. Jack's powers start as a simple enhanced perception ability and quickly grow to the ability to freeze a small group of enemies in place, a rapid dodge move that provides us with the easiest way to get a real "bullet time" ability to creating a distortion in time to act as a shield to hide behind and recover health to name a few.

On easier difficulties, the game is quite simple to play as a straight shooter with minimal use of powers but on the hard difficulty the player will need to make careful choices on how to best use their powers to overcome swarms of enemies, including special soldiers also capable of operating within the stutters.

Overall I enjoyed QB, the characters quickly grew on me and I wanted to see how the story ended. Hopefully we'll see a sequel or perhaps a standalone live action segment to tie together several loose ends.

An old hand of the Half Life series or a wet behind the ears gamer eager to understand the game that revolutionised modern gaming? Then look no further.

Black Mesa originally started out as a free mod for HL2 that eventually made the jump to a Valve sanctioned game in its own right. Black Mesa combines the game play and story that captured the hearts of gamers with the venerable source engine bringing physics, improved performance and some pretty slick visuals even by today's standards.

Black Mesa is a near faithful recreation of Half Life and Gordon Freeman's leap into video game history. The major changes compared to the original range from slight level redesign to completely new and reworked areas that just work. Some weapons are relocated compared to the original and I did feel a bit sad having to soldier on further to finally get that sweet, sweet MP5.

The cons? I played the game on Normal, I wasn't exactly chasing a challenge, I was more interested in having a nostalgia overload (by the way CHECK). And throughout the course of my playthrough, I died to gunfire / combat ONCE.

Enemies are smarter than the original but feel very fragile. At times the Marine AI is questionable as one member will stand fully upright unawares despite the other six members of his squad tactically moving on your position.

Overall Black Mesa is a great game, it's not yet finished with the final XEN chapter yet to be released but in its current stage it is definitely worth your time, regardless of your previous Half Life experience. And the same mob who made Black Mesa are also working on remakes of the old Half Life expansions, Opposing Force and Blue Shift respectively, so watch out for those someday too.

Rise of the Tomb Raider (RotTR) is the sequel to the 2014 Tomb Raider with events from the first game tying into RotTR.

Once again the player takes control of Lara and leads her on a one woman army struggle against all odds. Along the way you'll need to utilise the natural resources and Soviet left over supplies to upgrade your gear and continue the fight.

RotTR fixes some of the previous games concerns, one which I know bugged a lot of players was fighting modern weapon parts in ancient tombs that had never been opened.

However; RotTR persists some of the more annoying aspects of the original, namely quick time events. Granted Lara is skewered through the face in the first five minutes as in the previous game, RotTR nevertheless puts the player through several dubious and poorly explained situations, the final knife fight comes to mind.

Lara is a lot more nimble in RotTR when it comes to mountain climbing and has a number of new gadgets that can help her quickly scale across the cliffs and trees of the valley. Perhaps I have been spoiled by Uncharted 4, but the climbing mechanics in RotTR feel clunky at times with what is assumed to be a simple jump resulting in Lara falling 50m to her death without even a satisfying thud.

If you're a completionist, expect to be doing a lot of back tracking in RotTR. All the areas you play across can be revisted for farming extra supplies or completing missed challenges. A number of areas and items cannot be recovered until Lara has acquired certain pieces of equipment, luckily the game has several features allowing the player to easily find the items including her survivor instricts ability and recovering maps that reveal locations.

However, some parts of the game will require you to re-enter the area without fast traveling due to a cave in or lack of equipment and can be frustrating if you don't remember exactly where you entered that area from.

Overall RotTR is an improvement over the previous title with Lara still kicking ass and stabbing people in the throat with climbing axes. RotTR is a fun package with interesting puzzles and level design capable of supporting both the stealth orientated players and those who just have to kill every mother f***er in the room as loudly as possible.

8/10

More Men of War? Could this ever be a bad thing?

Well that depends, how many times can you capture a German trench? Believe me, by the time you get to the end of Condemned Heroes you should have pretty much mastered the art of assaulting an occupied trench.

Condemned Heroes can be difficult at times. Nearly every battle is a Soviet attack and as the game follows a Soviet penal unit, that means your guys are the tip of the spear. As grisly as that sounds, it's the counter attacks you have to watch out for.

No sooner have you shot, bashed or exploded the last German soldier must you begin to prepare for the inevitable counter attack. I bet you wished you hadn't thrown anti-tank grenades at the PAK or MG positions now, da, tovarich?

I don't think there was ever a counter attack where I wasn't just holding on by the skin of my teeth and hoarded anti-tank grenades [Hard difficulty]. You can begin to appreciate how soldiers felt in such situations when relief finally turned up and helped beat back the attackers.

Condemned Heroes is a visually pleasing and tactics intensive game that's only short fall is the focus on the Penal Heroes. Yes, they are the focus of the game but again, how many times must I assault a trench line then defend that trench line.

Other games in the Men of War series provide a more varied pallete of missions, Condemned Heroes should only be played by those wanting to truly test their infantry assault tactics.

7/10

'They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over.'

If there's one video game opening that has never left me, it's Max Payne. The grim, almost relieved voice speaking out over New York City from a top the Aesir Tower gripped me from the start.

Max Payne is part video game, part comic and a proud piece of video gaming history.

The best thing about Max Payne, other than the protagonist's name obviously, is bullet time. Slow down time to show off your moves and make every shot count.

Probably the only flaw of Max Payne was that it has to end. The average player should be able to clear the game within 7 hours quite easily on the first play through. Harder difficulties and a time trial mode are unlocked following the first play through and will test your abilities.

11/10 would noir again.