Скорошни рецензии на Old Man Writr

Do you like Stardew Valley, but wish there was less farming, more crafting, and everything was in 3D?

Then this is the game for you!

I haven't played it much on Steam (mostly played on the Switch version), but my god.

This game is the best.

It has heart.

Character.

GAMEPLAY.

And it was all made by one dude.

Just play it already!

Assassin's Creed has become a bit of a weird series in that it has radically changed from what it started out as.

On the one hand, you do still get to stab and kill people. On the other hand, Odyssey is somewhat bogged down by so many attempts to get you to pay additional real money for more content, whether that is extra DLC or skin items for your characters and various items you acquire.

Don't get me wrong. Odyssey is a joyously fun game. The combat mechanics take some getting used to but are fun once you get the hang of them, the quests are as good as ever, and commanding a ship has never felt so fantastic. The game is *fun*.

I just wish that it wasn't so bogged down by everything wrong with the gaming industry.

This game is fun. Short and simple. You can have rounds where everyone is taking everything seriously to try and accomplish the proper goals, and then go the next round with everyone being complete goofballs. It depends a lot on the servers you find and what your playstyle is.

Some cons:
- There is a lot of spectating. A lot. Just anticipate spending 50% of your time watching other people.

- There are a lot of bugs. Sometimes they're goofy and everyone's able to have a laugh, but othertimes the glitches are just weird and annoying (broken elevators come to mind).

- It has issues running depending on the specs you've got. I have a relatively new computer and so haven't encountered anything negative performance-wise, but if you have something that's even a little bit older you may not be able to play at all right now (RIP Intel graphics)

- If you're actually expecting a horror game, you've come to the wrong place. There is a server I've been on where someone isn't roleplaying something strange.

Honestly, this game is a blast. The updates seem to come at pretty regular intervals and the dev team works to fix some of those annoying bugs I mentioned previously, so it's only going to get better!

Overall, I like this game. I really do. That said, there is no doubt a lot of issues with it that prevent me from loving it.

- The story is a convoluted mess. The fact that this took 10 years to make shows, as the overall plot is disjointed and requires too much outside content in order to understand even the basics of what is happening. I'm all for secrets and worldbuilding in-game, but don't expect your players to sit through 3 more hours of content before they even start.

- Quests become very repetitive very fast. Most of them are just fetch-quests or "go here and kill x number of something," and that's no fun. There are a few instances (Daemonwall comes to mind) where quests actually feel fun or different, but they are very few and far between.

- Combat is good when dealing with few numbers. When you get swarmed by more than 4-5 enemies, however, it becomes an absolute clusterf*** where you can barely tell what is what. Not only that, but the camera has this annoying habit of getting stuck behind bushes or cliffs.

- The "open world" is not very open. If you give the player a method of off-road transportation (chocobos or the monster truck), then there should be more opportunities to actually off-road it. Instead most 'open' territories are no more than a thinly-concealed set of corridors with indestructible bushes and invisible barriers.

If you're considering buying Final Fantasy XV, consider this: do you want to play a game with a unique, fluid combat system unlike any other Final Fantasy game? Do you want to play a game with an epic story that, when is going well, has some unbelievably awesome moments? Do you want to play a game with a lot of interesting concepts? Because Final Fantasy XV has all of these things. It's unfortunate that there are so many weak areas that really limit this game from being a true masterpiece.

Okay. So right from the get-go, I want to say that I'm reviewing this as a game in its own rights, not as a Final Fantasy game. So there is that to start.

Cons:

• Corridor-central. Invisible walls are all over the place and make it a little difficult to tell exactly where you are allowed to go, and you really only have one path to ever follow.
  
• Cut-scenes, at least from what I have seen thus far, are not skipable. I've already played this game before when it was back on the Playstation 3, and so I don't really want to sit through all the cutscenes again. Unfortunately, it appears I don't have much of a choice.
  
• In battle, I can really only control one character. I can set roles for the others - such as whether to be offensive or defensive - but otherwise that's about it. So it feels like I'm not entirely in-control.
  
• You can change *some* of the keybinds, but not all. And, unfortunately, the only ones you can change are the ones that aren't that important to begin with (opening the menu, stuff like that). Considering how few keys you really need it isn't that big of a deal, but it does seem silly that only some controls can be changed.
  
• Controlling the camera is absolutely horrendous. You can't change mouse sensitivity, and so it often feels like it takes forever to move the camera where you want it to. This is an RPG so, again, it isn't really that important, but it made the game feel clunky.
  
• The character dialogue is pretty clunky. Maybe it's just the translation from Japanese, but it all does sound/feel forced, and as a result it's hard to properly connect with the characters.
  
  So now you're probably looking at all the negatives and wondering "why is he still recommending this game?" Well, here's why:
  
  • The battles are surprisingly fast-paced, especially with the "common" (I only say so because they appear more than once, even though they are scripted) enemies. This means that when you come up against a boss who takes a while to take out, it actually *feels* like a boss.
    
  • Though the dialogue is clunky, the story is still really fascinating. The worldbuilding they've done makes it feel like it really is a different world with its own complexities, as opposed to some of the earlier Final Fantasy games where it was just "different world different stuff". So that's nice.
    
  • For a six year-old game, the graphics still hold up. My laptop can't run much more than moderate Skyrim graphics, but this game looks fantastic on it. Honestly, it's gorgeous.
  
  Overall, I've enjoyed replaying the game again, six years later. I think that it's definitely a work-in-progress sort of thing as far as there being a lot of new ideas, and I'm hoping that things were refined in the newer games. Here's my final thoughts as far as whether you should buy this game:
  
  • If you're looking for a game that is open-world and offers a lot of customization, you shouldn't buy this game.
    
  • If you're looking for a game that has some fun gameplay, pretty graphics, and a decent story, then you should buy this game.

If you want to shoot zombies and actually have some fun doing it, this is the game for you.

I'll admit, I haven't put in as many hours as others, but that said I feel like I've gotten a pretty good look at how this game operates. And because of that, I simply can't recommend it.

Pros:
- The dinosaurs are truly amazing
- Plenty to do
- Dinosaurs are awesome
- The island is fun to explore
- Did I mention the dinosaurs?

Cons:
- Grinding. Lots and lots of grinding. Starting off on my own, it took me almost four whole IRL days to actually get anywhere. Even with a small group of friends, it still felt like it took way too long to get anything done, and the payoff sometimes just wasn't worth it.
- Public servers are awful. There's no real way to protect your stuff when you're offline unless you have a dedicated group of people who are constantly playing. As such, things that take hours of work end up getting ruined by some jerk with a rocket launcher. There's just no real way to ensure that your hours of work are actually protected.
- I know the devs have said they put more things in place to prevent hacking...but it's still pretty rampant. At least, it feels that way when some guy with 100+ Gigas following him rolls up on your compound and starts wrecking things.
- Again, the grinding. You'd expect a game to be a little less grind-heavy when you get to the late-game stuff, but even by the time your tribe has managed to get to Quetzals and Gigas and metal and everything, it still feels incredibly grindy. There's no possible way that a person who actually has things to do (i.e. job, school, etc.) can properly play this game, and it sucks.
- Optimization. The game has been slightly optimized since release, but there's still a bunch of issues. You need a pretty high-powered rig to play this without lag.

The premise is cool and all, but it feels more like a chore, not a game. And no amount of giant awesome dinosaurs can save it from that.

This isn't really even a game, it's more like that one crazy uncle who everyone loves but is also kinda weird and potentially on something.

Though it does take a bit of concentration to figure out the controls, the game plays as smoothly as melted butter. If anything, it's greatest detriment is its brevity; despite dying and failing numerous times, I completed it in just under 4 hours. Here's to hoping that Catalyst has a bit more meat to it.