Recenzii recente de Degni

I'm going against the current, I'm thoroughly disappointed with The Black Labyrinth in comparison to the incredible main game story, and I'll tell you why.

See, the main campaign of AMID EVIL is simply pure insanity; the pacing is outstanding, every single weapon you come across has their time to shine, to help you see why these weapons are so well designed for a "boomer shooter" like this one; a game like no other in the genre. It's crazy what they did here because, well, you start with gauntlets instead of the axe and their functionality is basically the same HOWEVER, the gauntlets serve as a puzzle key which is nice... until the novelty wears off.
The whole 'lets punch a hole through this wall' gimmick is badass but they kinda overdo it, which, as you'll notice, it's kind of a trend in Black Labyrinth. Sure going ORA ORA ORA ORA is really cool but you also get demolished by enemies even on Easy difficulty if you're not careful, and the game is merciless this time around because of one f-face called the Watcher or whatever his name is. Lemme tell you EXACTLY why this guy made me not enjoy this DLC as I hoped to.

The story is basically you spawn somewhere and there's this foggy dude saying "oh hello do you wanna play a game?" and all he does during the ENTIRE DLC is F with you. You know that trend of you see something you can pick up, like a sick weapon or the ending of the level and suddenly BAM, you get trapped or side-tracked because of course it wouldn't be so easy to get? YEAH, ABOUT THAT. Calling it overdoing it is underestimating the amount of times this crap happens; and the Watcher is always "HAHA GOTCHA LMAO NOOB" which made me roll my eyes every single time, man.

AMID EVIL is supposed to be a fast and absolutely bonkers game where you explode planets, zap enemies and banish them to the shadow realm with a freaking scythe, not being shoved around by some watcher demon because lmao it's funny to make the player redo entire sections because of his funny games.

Also, the enemies... ugh, the enemies; oh the misery. The Flaming Archer is a d-head because the arrows ignite the floor and guess what? Damage! And there's quite a bit of these guys to kill too but y'know? That's okay, they aren't totally awful, right? Well... lemme talk about the f-ing TOWER KNIGHTS and the most unfun enemy to come up against in this game.

The Tower Knights have a tower shield that makes them take NO DAMAGE FROM THE FRONT. You guessed it, you have to corner them and hit em on their bootycheeks to do damage, which in a game like this it completely ruins the pacing of a high octane action packed dynamic in terms of combat. Thankfully they're slow but still, they show up with friends and make a section of the game boring, which AMID EVIL SHOULDN'T EVER BE!

Anyway, the good parts now-- the visuals are incredible; same as the main campaign and man, these maps are absolutely gorgeous to visit and explore; breathtaking visuals with or without RT... and oh, the horde mode is fine but the Tower Knights ruin it when they start appearing.

I waited for this DLC to come for so long, I was expecting so much and I only have myself to blame. If you're not interested in a 4 hour campaign overshadowed with silly puzzles, a dungeon master that only wants to F with you and awful enemies... just play the main game and have an overdose of fun because that, my friends, that is what this DLC should've been more of-- FUN.

It broke and healed my heart in between recipe puzzles whilst making me VERY hungry above all else the entire time.

Definitely recommend the playthrough! Just don't play it when you're hungry; trust me.

The fact they decided to come back to this game and update it for seemingly no reason is simply amazing.

It's still the Ultimate Carnage edition which contains more drivers included who make the campaign even more chaotic and fun! Plus, achievements! Hell yes, it's still the same good ole formula of the amazing Flatout 2 and original Ultimate Carnage but this is the definitive Flatout to play; also, you can even get mods to add the OG Flatout 2 soundtrack to make it even better!

I finished this game twice, once before the update and I just had to play and 100% it again after they added achievos because it is that damn satisfying to play. If you don't wanna listen to the soundtrack (the original UC's soundtrack is also pretty good! It just doesn't feature some heavy names that the Flatout 2 soundtrack does) this is the perfect game to watch videos or listen to podcasts as you play.

If you're itching for a destruction derby, vehicular fenderbender type of deal-- grab this masterpiece. You will not regret it.

I’m a huge SR fan, playing and replaying the original and the masterpiece that is SR2 all the way back on the Xbox 360 and man, when this reboot came out I couldn’t believe the fiasco that it was. No Shaundi, Pierce, Kinzie or Gat, no Stillwater or Steelport, badly rendered cartoonish graphics, plagued with glitches and well, it was also delayed several months and still came out terrible.

...so why is this a positive review? Because, my friends, the state of this game now in 2024 is genuinely good, decent even! I’m having so much fun with it and I felt the absolute need to write this review to maybe coerce convince people to give it a go!


I found myself caring about them and being invested in their loyalty stories, like Neenah with her project car, Kevin wanting to get the fast food toy he never had as a kid and Eli’s LARPing mission which is seriously fanfookingtastic, I highly recommend it if you’re vaguely familiar with DnD which, well, in today’s day and age how can you not at least have heard about it? Anyway, the main issue is that we had four games with the old crew and it is difficult to care for the new college kids especially now that we’re older than it is caring for Pierce and singing in the car with him 10+ years ago. I felt the same way about Mass Effect Andromeda and its new characters after an incredible trilogy; replacing what is familiar to us is already a very risky move and risky is what this game is to its core.

People claim that the new characters are obnoxious, cringeworthy and that they’re not what Saints Row ‘is’… well, remember the huge tone shift from SR2 to SR3? People said the exact same thing. The series hasn’t been ‘serious’ since then people, come on. Also, we were younger during the time of their release and I can safely say the humour is still very much same, just in the 2020s instead of the late 2000s/early 2010s. We’re older, it’s fine.

You can enable speech bubbles that make the city even more alive because the stuff the people say is legit ridiculous, like one guy desperate he’s gonna miss his stand-up session or some dude talking about a dog’s butt glands. It IS funny; maybe not for everyone my age but to me, I am having a blast with the humour and the new gang is completely fine.


Did they deliver with the writing this time? To me at least, ish. The writing isn’t jaw-dropping but it’s not your usual ironic angsty teenager jokes, just very influenced by… well, influencers but that isn’t terrible like people exaggerate when it comes to this game. To me, the Idols are just what Matt Miller’s gang, the Deckers are in today’s day and age consumed by social media instead of what was popular in 2011 and such but the dark comedy is still Saints Row, it is still has the same edge and more, for better or worse.

The main issue to me is how poorly paced the game is. It starts very well with an insane mission to get us familiar with the controls and guess what? We’re chasing a guy on top of a fighter jet! HOW IS THIS NOT A SAINTS ROW MISSION?
What comes next is a couple more grounded missions explaining how our roommates, which by the way, are already all criminals, turn into a gang. I think it felt a bit forced to shoehorn the creation of the Saints too early on but I didn’t feel it was out of place, just rushed to that point of the story, which what I think are all very similar to what the older games did – totally bonkers in every sense of the word.


The shooting is a bit hit and miss (heh) but overall satisfying, especially with that glorious handcannon just exploding people’s brains like it’s nothing and it is what you’ll be doing the most. I’ve seen people talking about how bulletspongy the enemies are and do I have the solution for you!

You can adjust the game’s difficulty to your liking in the options menu.

I don’t know if this was already an option on release but right now you can just make the enemies die in a couple shots, lower their damage and MORE! I made the game feel even more FUN with zero frustrations but with a dash of challenge; those dang Marshalls during the @TCHA missions are a pain.
Oh, you can even remove the timed missions so the insurance fraud goals don’t seem impossible to get! The accessibility is THAT good. I was impressed and I hope every game has the same accessibility from now on. If I want a high but fair challenge I can go play Fromsoftware games, not waste my entire ammo on a single armoured enemy here. lmao

The side-missions are cool for what they are. Again, this isn’t the exceptional Saints Row 2 (have you noticed how much I love SR2?) but decent enough to have fun with it. I personally like the Davey ones where you just shoot people while he drives. Look, man, I just sit on the top of a car and shoot bad guys without having to worry about anything; I’m a simple man, I just wanna shoot and explode cars.

The collectables are your run-of-the-mill stuff like taking pictures of places, collecting drugs some people left over unsupervised for some reason with some garbage hunting that Stelle/Caelus from HSR would be proud of. It’s hilarious seeing my character just dive in head first into a dumpster and find money, golden parts for a truck and more. What in the heck is this?? It’s Saints Row humour yet again delivering.

You have the good ole ‘go there and kill that guy’ missions but with some backstory that reminds me of the old GTA public telephone missions, remember those? Here there’s a WANTED app for you to pick and choose people to kill and some reasoning to it... as if you needed any, you monster.

Also the driving is fine, it felt very SR2 due to how heavy the cars feel but drifting is fantastic to do and the cars all look pretty nice! Talking about nice...


MAN OH MAN THE CUSTOMIZATION IS OFF THE CHAIN HOOK!!! You can tune cars, tune guns, tune yourself, tune your gang, change your appearance on the go and even place collectibles inside the base. The options are insane; just today I tuned a truck to look like (and drive like) Darkside from Twisted Metal and well, you can even put a gigantic spoiler on the truck, nitrous and an off-road upgrade.

I spent a good couple of hours tuning different cars because it’s just fun as hell. It’s so easy to lose track of time if you’re into this sort of thing. Also, there’s a LOT of shops around the city of Santo Ileso to get new clothes, tattoos and guns so make sure to visit all of them because they have different options! I feel I can pinpoint exactly where Volition were doing this with a purpose and when they knew the studio was going to close down because man, there is a soul in this game, as sappy as I am being right now but I am having so much fun with this.


I’m genuinely in love with this game and it is what I was expecting a new Saints Row to be like, especially after the pure insanity SR4 was! I can understand why people dislike it but treating it as the worst game of all time ain’t it. I haven’t played the DLCs yet but I’m super looking forward the DnD one because during the Eli mission to conquer a fort, there’s a treasure with a plaque pointing to it saying MIMIC and if you interact with, it goes “arghhh monster noises” and I love it. Oh yea, during the LARP mode you don’t ‘kill’ anyone, their ‘characters’ die instead like the Necromancer who you cannot shoot before you deal with her thralls and her mass revive spell. LMAO

Don’t go in expecting a AAA release, there’s still glitches like when I was stealing a car that didn’t load its textures or the overpowered fire hydrants that launch even trucks into the air. The ragdoll physics are hilarious and well, as you can already picture, I have very few bad things to say about it even with its Mixed reviews.

Grab it on sale!

Remember Digimon Dawn/Dusk? I played and finished it over 12~13 years ago with my totally legit and real DS and man, even with super fast-forward, I distinctively remember how SLOW everything moved-- I'm not talking about the battles, I'm talking about progress. I don't know who decided that Digimon games needed to be so different than Pokémon because... yeah, I felt the same sluggish progress here in Next Order.

Here's the thing, the game is a love letter to Digimon World 1, a game I tried to play multiple times as a child but I couldn't figure out what to do due to not speaking English, but now as an adult I see how great that game really is with its concept being such a breath of fresh air in terms of 'monster collecting', especially at the time with the Digimon asking for food, needing to use the bathroom and training specific attributes in order to evolve them into something that isn't a Numemon or a Sukamon. Now the issue with Next Order is that it tries to emulate how DW1 felt but... it doesn't do a very good job.


The game starts already giving a preview of the battle system, where you can order your guys around and have a little bit of authority over the battle with it, but the main problem is how every move has a super slow wind-up motion that is grating after a hundred battles or so. Oh the game also teaches you about ExE, a cross evolution with your two partners into a bigger and better Digimon that... well, you'll only use it again waaaaaaay later in the game. I almost forgot this existed until I saw the ExE letters flashing when my Digis reached Mega 10 hours or so into the game. Yeah, the tutorial is all over the place.

Eventually you end up in Floatia with Jijimon again being the 'guide' to how the city system works! It's a real cool concept that felt a bit undercooked with some of its very important upgrades being especially super late in the story, but I digress. The point here is that you need to recruit other Digimons to help enhance and improve the city, so we can save the Digital world! Okey-dokey, that seems simple enough, right? Yeah... about that-- in theory it is but the GRINDING the game wants you to do is a product of its time. A 2016 original release game for the PS freaking VITA and then PS4 a year later with its semi-open world and MMORPG design... including its terrible fetch quest and slow walking speed through the very well crafted maps; the maps are gorgeous! I love how beautiful everything is, and the music is very good too, even if it's a tad repetitive after a while grinding on the same map. Just beware of your Tamer yelling during battles and turn the volume down.

Again, I don't know who decided it was a good idea to hinder the player so much. You can extract materials from the ground! Cool, you have to wait for your character to stop and pick it up EVERY TIME. These materials only come in handy 2~3h into the game once you find Veemon and manage to recruit him, because Digimons will only have a quest for you once you've checked some marks so their questline can be accessed. It is a drag, it truly is-- the difficulty is ridiculous and I recommend playing it on the easiest one just so you can progress faster, the only thing it changes is how tanky and powerful the enemies are as far as I know so don't ego it, trust me, it's not worth it.


Well my friends, the only reason this is a positive review is because there are MODS for this game! YES! MODS!

Thankfully some beautiful creatures made mods that hugely improve the grinding and quality of life of Next Order. I used:

• Fast Pickup (so you don't stop and bend down to pick up items-- helping your tamer not damage their lumbar!)
  
• One Hit Resources (pick everything up without having to click on the same place several times)
  
• Battle Stats Multipliers (speed up the grind)
  
• Show Hidden Parameters
  
• Inventory Expander (cap it at 9999, don't go to 20000 like I did because every time you use the tent, your game will crash)
  
• Field Camera Config Exposer
  
• CriBindDir (extra mod tool for some stuff to work)
  
• Material World (so you don't need to grind materials for HOURS)
  
• Always Running (it makes the fetch quests more bearable plus you can run from hostile mons much easier)
  
• Descriptive Resources
  
• Faster Tamer Skill Gain (max your digi life expectancy first if you don't want them to die so early)
  
• Instant Care Menu (prob my favourite just for how fast it really is)
  
• Uncapped Stats (it trivializes the end-game)
  
• See All Items
  
• Life Manager (BETA)

Their descriptions are on their mod page on Nexus and it's really easy to install everything, and I only recommend this slog of a game so it doesn't waste your time too much because guess what? Your time will be wasted regardless, that's how Next Order is, it tries to be a nuisance with a lot of walking around and overcomplicates the simple stuff a ton.

The pacing of the game is terrible. The first chapter is by far the longest one with you figuring out a lot as you go. Just explore, that's it. Recruit everyone you can find, read what they have to say in the city so you get to know the how-tos of the system.
My suggestion is to not low-ball the Tentomon selling stuff, just buy his shid so he can move into the city; make sure to help Wormmon for the fishing rod! Try your hand at fishing until you get a Digicarp, it'll make things easier when you find a very famous yellow bipedal fox and oh, Greymon lends you a tent once you help him too-- it'll make it better to not having to auto-pilot back to Floatia every time. Also, Birdramon is a must so get her on board, then Biyomon and every time you use Birdramon to fast travel 5 times, talk to Biyomon so she gifts you 5 auto-pilots; those bits are precious early game and them auto-pilots are EXPENSIVE.

My biggest issue is the builder... man, you can ONLY BUILD ONE GOSHDARN PLACE AT ONCE! It doesn't matter if you upgrade the builder itself, it'll always be ONLY ONE and that makes progressing the city upgrades so much slower! It's genuinely my biggest gripe with this game above everything else.

Ah, your Digimons have needs here too, mainly eating and shidding. If you battle too much they will become fatigued, which then you can help by giving them watery meals ONLY WHEN THEY'RE HUNGRY, otherwise tent up or go back to the Training Dojo and let em rest with Gigimon (and later on Angemon).
When the Digis reach Mega they simply get constipated-- they don't shid anymore, but still get as many Portable Toilets because you will need it when they die. Yeah, they will die and be reborn into Digieggs... it's a whole mood, not the best kind either, it just sucks because if they die when you're in the middle of a story quest, like it happened to me, I had to stop everything I was doing to boost my guys up again to at least CHAMPION to face the boss. Yeah, I don't feel bad for using Battle Stats Multiplier anymore.


Digimon World Next Order helped scratch that Digimon itch I was having but I have to admit I forced myself to continue playing and only 100% it with mods, also because there's an end-game quest with Emperor/KaiserGreymon and MagnaGarurumon where MagnaGaruru asks you to have space left in your inventory so you can deliver shid to KaiserGrey but EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE AMOUNT HE ASKS TO, HE MIGHT NOT GIVE YOU EVERY SINGLE ITEM AND THE QUEST WILL BE BUGGED. YES, THAT SUCKS-- SAVE YOUR GAME IN DIFFERENT SLOTS AND OFTEN, VERY OFTEN.

Mods saved my playthrough and if you plan on giving this game a try definitely look into them... otherwise, I highly suggest trying Cyber Sleuth, Survive or the older ones. Digimon World DS is actually very fun and doesn't drag as Dusk/Dawn!

Remember playing those licensed games from the late 90s~early 00s during a rainy afternoon when you were sick and didn't go to school? Remember how they used to make you feel? Well, that nostalgia is here in Scrat's Nutty Adventure but it showed me how barebones most of these 3D platformers can still be even 20~25 years later.

The only reason I'm recommending this game is because it CAN be a very fun adventure! I'll explain why:

The story has nothing to do with the other characters from the Ice Age series which at first was a bummer but man, I forgot how much this silly squirrel makes me laugh. I'll admit I kept playing because the noises he makes are glorious.
So the idea is basically the same as always has with him, Scrat wants to get the acorn and by doing so he ends up finding a mysterious temple belonging to the Scratazon, an alien race of female squirrels. Yes, the story is bonkers LMAO please don't be like the 'anti-console' loser also reviewing this game using lotsa words and saying absolutely nothing important while also complaining about the HISTORICAL ACCURACY of a game starring a funny squirrel chasing an acorn featuring alien powers in the Ice Age-- holy shid dude what an embarrassment of a person that guy is. Anyway, Scrat finds himself guided by the aliens to find four Crystal Acorns and by doing so, he goes on an adventure unlocking and using a few upgrades given by the aliens as he finds said acorns.

Now I used a controller so I cannot comment on KB+M; the controls feel good but they kinda screwed me over a few times and so did the somewhat unresponsive sensitive camera, however nothing gamebreaking. The game felt infinitely better after I got the double jump upgrade; it's the first upgrade you get like, 20~25 minutes into the game.
Oh quick reminder that you can't really customize much of the settings. It feels the J.A.W devs just didn't bother or were rushed to make the PC port, which seems a pattern with most games published by Outright Games; most of their games just... lack soul, but thankfully Scrat has more than enough soul to compensate the bitter feeling this game left me.

The cutscenes are hilarious; if you grew up watching the Ice Age movies and loved Scrat there, here's as grand if not better! This lil guy is still the best.
The soundtrack is pretty decent, it fits the areas of the game and so does the world building and design; the levels aren't gorgeous nor hideous, just cartoony enough to feel like the Ice Age series.

Scrat's journey is super short and extremely easy until the last levels where the platforming is a tad challenging and so are the puzzles, but nothing ridiculous; the slides can yeet you sometimes but it's fine, the game doesn't really have any infuriating areas and checkpoints are plenty. You can even 'damage-abuse' jumping on water/lava to skip certain parts of the levels too. Only 1~2 times because 3 times it kills Scrat regardless of his health.

Yes, I did everything and I did not regret 100%ing, even though the game doesn't facilitate the completionists but it's ok, just fast traveling to the beginning of each level and redoing them now with all the upgrades isn't a hassle if you really, really want to get all the achievements, it's just boring if anything.
About the rest-- most of the collectables aren't necessary aside from getting the achievos. You can just run past most if not all enemies and it won't matter; just try to get 5000 shard thingies so you have a bigger health bar but other than that, there's no use for them. I wish we had a shop to spend these shards to improve strength and such but unfortunately there isn't anything like it... which is very similar to the licensed games I talked about at the beginning of this review. Oh by the way the game only unlocked the achievements for me after I closed it for whatever reason so don't worry if you're not unlocking anything as you're playing.

So lemme explain the reasoning of my title for this review: The first thing that popped in my head while playing Scrat's Deez Nutz was a Fairly Oddparents PS2 game I remember finishing 2~3 times because it was simple and didn't ask much of me other than do the puzzles and the platforming. It was pure fun; a familiar IP that I loved, that carried itself in an otherwise unremarkable platformer and it entertained me as a kid, but I don't know if it would do the same to me now as a 30 year old. Here's the thing, Scrat is hilarious on his own, I decided to keep going mostly because of his antics and noises and also because the platforming is passable but that's it, there's no other incentive if you don't care about Scrat.

It makes me sad that I still feel surprised at these licensed games being so... lame, you know? I get it, not everybody can be a Guardians of the Galaxy but why does most of them are so devoid of life? Scrat's Ligma Nuts feels like a game made in 2003 with modern-ish graphics and lemme reiterate, it is a VERY simple 3D platformer with a wonderful protagonist, weird but hilarious story, questionable camera angles, the same 4~5 boring enemies and useless collectables that left me wanting MORE. I like simple, some times less is more but man... I wish this had more polish and love because I see a ton of potential, the devs weren't that far from something genuinely great here; I'm biased because I love the setting and IP a lot but yeah, this is how I feel.
Oh the final cutscene is ridiculous and I loved it, it made it all worth it just for the laughs I had. lmao

Bottom line is there are much richer, cheaper and better 3D platformers out there that deserve your attention more if you are itching for one, like A Hat In Time. Please don't buy it at full price.
Now if you got this game cheap in a bundle or in a trade like me, definitely give it a shot if you have any sort of nostalgia for ole Scrat because he carries this empty shell of a game with grace and a NUT ton of charisma.

But unironically. Souldiers is a stunning looking metroidvania that could've been cut in half and it would've done great.

Let me get this out of the way first -- Come ON, man, those dungeons are ridiculously bloated with so many indecisive paths and 'secrets' that are mostly some random coins and potions I ended up not even using. It was such a frustrating experience but I stubbornly continued just because the artwork is wonderful and the gameplay loop is actually cool, but very, very repetitive with the exception of the wall-jumping upgrade; that thing straight up sucks.
How many times I caught myself realizing I spent 4~5h still in the SAME DUNGEON. Listen, I love playable content that keeps on giving but this is sincerely lazy; a multitude of gorgeous, but copy-pasted scenarios with a few changes here and there. The game drags on and on and on! So much of Souldiers could've been done in so little time; this game should've been a 12~15 hour game and I'd honestly look past most of the rest of the bullcrap that I will talk about now.

The story is ok, your character is just some dude with main character plot armour plus everything feels like an acid trip after a while so it doesn't matter-- it's all over the place. The characters are really charming and the sprites for both allies and enemies are amazing but that's about where the 'fun ends' because the game doesn't want you to have any.

Let me explain-- Souldiers starts really charming, it gives you time to get used to your character's moveset and such; I chose the archer and I liked it, did not look back even with the somewhat clunky ammo system we have for arrows, but it's alright, we can still throw the bow as a boomerang to deal damage. The first dungeon is the Spider Lair and it's really simple and straight-forward for the most part but boi... at the end of the dungeon I thought aloud "if the first dungeon is this long... imagine the rest." and not only imagine I did, I also experienced it.

There's a ton of exploration but like I mentioned before, the secrets are hit or miss; sometimes you get a nice secondary weapon and other times... coins. Coins are used to upgrade your items and weapons together with a few different ores we also get on chests, which is fine but wow, the game disrespects your time so much with how terribly paced the dungeons are. I would've prefer to grind enemies to get these rocks, not having to get inside dungeons with terribly placed checkpoints, which mind you, IT'S THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN SAVE THE GODDANG GAME. Yep, I did a fcuky wucky, needed to restart my game and guess what? I lost 2h~ of exploration because I didn't want to save since it respawns enemies. It's my fault but still, what a lame mechanic.

Now, the "Floating Whatever" (I forgot the name) was the dungeon that almost made me give up because it is that frustrating. Not only there are some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ZIPPY ZAPPY RATS that TELEPORT ON YOU and can PARALYZE you, there's also some very annoying birbs summoned by an invisible 'birbmancer' that go through terrain just to kamikaze you to inflict paralysis; yep, they're 'those' kinds of enemies that die in one hit but if they hit you, it's just infuriating if you're far away from a save state or out of paralyze heal or whatever -- my point is that the game does almost everything in its power to anger the player, at least it annoyed me to no end. It felt these obstacles were only testing my patience and not giving me a challenge or that thirst for progress; they were just being a nuisance for the sake of being one.
Ok, I get it, Souldiers is one of those harder games but hard doesn't mean stupidly annoying-- you think the toxic dart dudes in Blighttown are bad? Check out the poison, frozen, paralyze status and such in this game, some even stop you in motion to take damage and/or have to redo an entire platforming setting because 'get wrecked mid jump loser lmao'.

In short, the game is beautiful but terrible to look past its awful decisionmaking which sucks because the artwork is pure eye candy... what isn't is the game design; not everything has to be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ maze within a maze within a maze in a metroidvania, guys. Seriously that pyramid is terrible.

I find it funny the achievement for finishing the game on its hardest difficulty is called "The Impossible". Even the cheeky devs know the game is a slog to go through. I'm a bit disappointed I will not 100% finish this one, it is simply not worth my time... man, to think even ELEX 2 was worth my time, holy shid.

Anyway, best avoid it if you value your time. I wish I did but alas, we live and we learn... who am I kidding, I'll probably play something worse than this eventually. lmao

Okay I'm gonna make this review mostly about ONE particular sidequest because it is that good. I'll do a tl;dr at the end about the rest of the game so let's go.


When I got access to The Fort after doing a couple too many fetch quests so that bald bastard of a guard lets me in, I stumbled upon a merchant Morkon in Berserker territory named Ivan. After talking to him, it's easy to notice he isn't like most Morkons I've encountered before -- he's too nice, too polite and doesn't want any trouble but for being a Morkon he is treated like crap by everyone else, within reason mind you given the Morkon's reputation isn't the best in the world of ELEX 2 but Ivan just wants to help with whatever he can, and he supplies the gas masks necessary for the miner's quest I got early from Scrappy.

So, why is this guy the main reason of this review? Because his questline is easily on the top 3 of my all-time favourite quests I've EVER done in any videogame ever and I'll explain why.

Ivan needs his rations from Chloe, the bar owner in the Fort region, who is currently dealing with some problems of her own so she is in a dire, dire mood. After resolving her issues and getting access to the Upper District, she can get Ivan's rations from an eccentric dude who lives up there. See, Ivan couldn't do anything to get his rations because nobody gave two craps about whether he lived or died just for being a Morkon in an unwanted territory, as his first quest is aptly named "An Unwelcome Morkon". With that done, he is beyond excited he can finally go back home to the Grotto to see his family and here's where I started to get very attached to this character's story.

If you're like me and prefer exploring before doing main missions, just wandering around visiting places and talking to every character you find, you will probably find an entrance guarded by two mechanic beasts -- this is the Morkon's place, the Grotto, an old subway station turned into a hub for this particular faction.
The Morkons are ruthless, they have their own religion worshipping Raavac (dudes worshipping a battery lmao Rayovac) and there are some 'heretics' who have their own sub-faction who follow Kriiton, a name that most Morkons fear mentioning because the consequences involve torture and more of that good stuff; I won't get too much into their lore because that's a completely different quest to get but basically, followers of Raavac like destruction and followers of Kriiton do not, and Ivan is a guy who talks briefly about the cult of Raavac and even says something along the lines of "If you stand by what's right, the right ones will find you, or you will find them" referencing Kriiton followers who want this unrestrained carnage to stop.

Inside of the Grotto, I found PINGAS-- I mean, TENGIS, some self-indulgent prick who wants to know Ivan's whereabouts, and demands that he comes back but here's the thing, Ivan is a merchant, and he has traded with other factions which is strictly forbidden by the law of the Morkons and Tengis knows that, he just wants Ivan to come back so he can have a reason to kill him.

When I told Ivan back in the Fort that PINGAS wants him back, he sounded a bit jittery but he packs up and asks me if I want to accompany him to the Grotto. You can choose here and say no and that's that but I said yes, I want to go with Ivan and we begin this little 'escort' mission this game loves throwing at us.

Ivan talks about his life, about his old partner Danilo, another Morkan who came with Ivan to... well, not trade. They were sent to pillage and murder people but in one of their misadventures, Danilo got killed which made Ivan rethink his life. He just... isn't made for this. Yes, he killed people before because Morkons don't mourn people, they think death is some kind of privilege and they need to earn their deaths to reach Eternal Oblivion (Tibia reference!) and Ivan attempts to recruit me but, personally, I'm not interested in joining any factions so we keep going. We stopped at a place to rest; Ivan asks me to kill some biters and get their meat so we can cook a meal, then he tells me to get some rest and that he will stay up instead. Here I was sure something bad was gonna happen -- is this happy-go-lucky guy is gonna steal my stuff? Is he gonna try to kill me? Well... nope, when I woke up, Ivan is there by the campfire, excited we are ready to continue the journey to the Grotto.

This guy... man, he's such a sweetheart and I am going to protect him with everything I can. We keep walking, he makes jokes, tries to figure out where Jax, the protagonist, is from and such -- all in good fun, until we find some Poachers from the Grotto and Ivan is terrified of them. They haven't seen Ivan in a long time and there's severe punishment for not returning so when they're approached, they seem surprised Ivan is still alive and they ask about Danilo. Ivan explains everything and there we have the option to vouch for him or not, and I vouched for him. They treat Ivan like a vermin but I decided to not get involved, I don't want to complicate things for him, especially now that we are so close to the Grotto. No physicality necessary, just keep going.

Ivan talks about how ecstatic he is to see his family again and we finally get to the Grotto, he bids me farewell and hopes to see me again. I go straight to PINGAS to tell him Ivan is here, but this ♥♥♥♥ guy doesn't care, he wants Ivan murdered for 'betraying' the Morkons. At this time I panicked, "NO, I WILL NOT LET IVAN DIE". I ran (jetpacked at full speed inside of the subway station) to Ivan's location, found him and his wife Marika and told him what happened. Ivan was mortified, he begged me to tell PINGAS he fled, escaped somehow and so I did, I ran back to that twit and protected Ivan. PINGAS wasn't happy, blamed on the Poachers but whatever, fk this guy.

At this point his questline was over and guess what? Ivan was safe, his wife as well and to my surprise they were back in The Fort so I fast-traveled there to check in on him and here's where my heartstrings were pulled -- Ivan was safe, there's an epilogue to his quest. He asks his DAUGHTER, Tamara to see me but she is scared; she was kept hidden her entire life because the Morkons couldn't find out he had kids. It'll take time for her to adapt to the outside world. Ivan even said "Tamara, please, he's a friend" YES I AM YOUR FRIEND IVAN!!!
Marika, his wife, is so happy to see me and beyond thankful I helped them escape. She also had no idea there was a world so big outside the Grotto and wished she got out earlier in her life with her parents.
Ivan said everyone is treating him better, it helped he showed up with his family at the gate and even Chloe seems like a different person, doing everything she can to help Ivan stay afloat.

This... this side mission in this janky game made me so emotional. A side character whose fate doesn't mean anything to the main plot made me feel things I yearn to feel again. To whoever wrote Ivan's story, if you read this somehow-- thank you, thank you for making such a wonderful character and giving him an actual happy ending because it's stuff like this that makes me happy. ELEX 2 is not a particularly good game but the writing for a couple characters is simply incredible. I love you, Ivan, and I will never forget our adventures together, my friend.


Other than Ivan's quest, ELEX 2 is a 6.5/10 game in my opinion. Janky controls, awful combat, terrible story pacing, wonky animations but a vast world to explore, funny easter eggs and many, many quests with interesting characters to talk to and know more about. The upgrades for the jetpack are a must to reduce the slog to the minimum but it's a drag to get there.

I only recommend this game because there's a lot of love poured into the writing of minor characters that make the RPG experience all worth it.

The Outer Worlds... what a disappointing ride. I know it's cliché but I really wish we had a mixed review option because this game has its merits but it ultimately fails in being what tries to be -- a very uncharismatic Fallout game, but I can still recommend it for people who enjoy cool companions. Long text ahead:

So, for starters, I do love the first impression the game gives and honestly, it doesn't really get better than that after wrapping up the first area but hey, it doesn't get worse either.

Edgewater is where we land first and the game has time to unravel its issues and introduce people for us to talk to, understand the situation and do what we feel like, whether it's best for you or the people's future. It does not matter what you do, the only thing that changes is a powerpoint slideshow at the end explaining what happened to everybody and that's about it, so don't worry about your choices having an impact because they really don't. Here's where the RPG comes along, you just pretend the morals and ethics of your character actually matter in your headcanon because that's what I did.

However, the attention to detail shows how important the first hub is to the game with quite a lot to explore, fun quests and two characters to recruit right away, Parvati and Vicar Max. Parvati is just a bundle of awkwardness but I love her, she's super funny to keep around and her skill is actually sick, oh yeah the companions have active skills-- more on that later. Max is... okay, he's a 'holy' man who swears a lot which can be funny but I was never invested in his story. I won't spoil but savour the first area of the game because like I mentioned before, it does not get better than that-- storywise (writing, characters, world building) and gameplaywise (combat, exploration and overall 'feel' of the game).

Groundbreaker is the second hub and this is where the game started to lose me. Here I just walked around fetching quests and talking with a bunch of very shallow characters, just barely interesting to keep me going but I decided to see what the meat and potatoes of the game was, and so I did. I recruited Ellie, the snarky doctor and Felix, some dude and I was headed to Monarch and did some sidequests for exp and hopefully better loot. You can improve your weapons and gear on a workbench anywhere you can find it (there's one in your ship) but it's very barebones. Tinker levels your gear up but there's no option to instantly level em to the max, so I had to spam click EVERY TIME.

In Monarch... I mean, it's almost Edgewater's story but worse with a lot of running around and the same boring enemies. There's a conflict but both parties just suck so do whatever you feel like while exploring this Borderlands-esque barren wasteland full of nada. My quest for peace bugged at the end so I just killed both MSI and Iconoclasts; fk you Monarch, what a waste of time. Anyway, the story kinda picks up from here because we finally have an objective with Phineas being more present in the game. I won't elaborate any further for spoiler reasons, just know the story started to get interesting to me only AFTER Monarch.

Lemme talk about the companions! Parvati and Ellie were my go-to because I liked them more than the dudes, and on Monarch I got my last human companion, Nyoka, who is also a badass. You can talk to your companions and do their personal quests if you so desire, if you don't then they get a bad ending during the ending powerpoint slideshow. Anyway, I found all of the companion quests hit or miss with Parvati being the cutest but also a drag to finish and Ellie's being somewhat anticlimactic. Max's is just so out there and Felix's has some more emotional baggage with Nyoka's being the heaviest in terms of sympathy towards your companion. You can also unlock SAM, a dumb robot and that's it; it's just a robot, zero character development.

The regular sidequests involve a ton of "go there and kill that guy" but you can use and abuse the fast travel system so be sure to explore a lot before doing anything if you want an easier time; In Supernova difficulty you can't fast travel so I recommend playing it after you finished the game once. My fav sidequest was the one to rescue unique named sprats, the mutated rats of this game. They're so CUTE lmao they all have stupid names like "Iskander Immanuel Sanchez"or "Vonda von Vermington" and I'm still obsessed with them.
My least favourite was Celeste's in Byzantium. I hated the ending; it felt so stupid, just like Byzantium, the last hub of the game, where the wealthy and snobby live in pure ignorance to the rest of Halcyon falling apart. It's 'okay' but it also doesn't overstay its welcome.

Also there's no romance options, which I believe it was a dev choice not to include it but I think something could've been done there if they wanted to. I helped Parvati ask and go on a date with someone which is very cute but, there's nothing else about the companions that you get to know better because the devs just decided to not develop their characters any longer. For example, Ellie has a VERY interesting conflict in her quest and after I finished it, she said she finally trusts me now but if I go talk to her in the ship, there's no new dialogue options after doing the quest. You all really half-assed the companion writing too, huh? This sucks. I thought the characters would feel more comfortable with my character but nope, it felt like nothing changed (because it didn't).

Just to get more of my disappointments with the game out of the way -- there are unique named 'miniboss' monsters but that's it, there's no "Hunt" system like in Final Fantasy 12 for example which I love dearly; they just... exist. You find a slightly bigger canid with a sick name but there's no quest related to it-- it's very lame.
Also your character has a VATS bullet-timey shoehorned into the game. It's fine, it gets more use on higher difficulties but that's it. Oh, you can steal sh*t with zero consequence if there's no NPCs watching you and you can also pickpocket people with the same idea in mind.

Now, here's where I feel the game shines the most. You can level up skills like hacking, engineering and whatnot and they actually serve a purpose in the game with dialogue options and ways of opening safes and doors which I love; what I don't love is the amount of crap you loot from these places that are almost never worth using lockpicks for. I caved and used a trainer to not use my items as I unlocked safes and doors so I could just open them for no reason other than hoarding items.
If you level up intimidate for example, it can scare enemies during combat which is awesome. The combat is REALLY cool, it's like Fallout 4 so I personally adored it. Using the companion skills is very rewarding as well, especially Parvati just hammering down the ground and killing multiple enemies at once.

For the DLC, well... Gorgon is okay, it's boring for the most part and the main quest is just uneventful. It's whatever but Eridanos is actually very fun. Be warned, there's a LOT of walking around, this is why I enabled 'super speed' on my trainer of choice because wow, that was a lot of walking but the story is a rich murder mystery and interesting to follow. Make sure to do the NukaC-- I mean the Spectrum Vodka quest (or whatever the name is) to unlock a DOPE GATLING GUN. My fav weapon.

I managed to get all the achievos and some I had to grind to, but others I just saved-scummed and used a trainer to make my life easier. This game can drag a lot but the gameplay loop isn't terrible. I like lootershooters I can hoard junk items and the atmosphere and humour do scratch that Fallout itch that Starfield does not. You can be an a**hole towards any NPC for no reason but some really deserve it which always result in a funny remark. I recommend being a c*nt in this game, I highly encourage if anything. lmao

Probably my favourite Vampire Survivor clone I've ever played. The graphics are great, very Diablo-esque and pleasing to look at with an option to even change the graphics if you so desire.

Halls of Torment is packed with tons of hours to invest in to unlock upgrades, especially for an early access title. It's not as deep and insane like VS is but it is certainly unique in its department. The atmosphere of the game is so good, very immersive except for that dang ice cave level; I hate that place. lmao

Definitely give it a try! Also, the flamethrower is just super fun to use.