Recent reviews by Norris the Nonce Slayer

Eaten Alive!-era-Tobe Hooper-core

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ a roight

♥♥♥♥♥♥ a roight

One of the best multiplayer games ever. Don't let the flame die out!

Only worthwhile on a steep sale. Not as good at survival horror as RE2 and DEFINITELY not as good at action as RE4, this ends up as an awkward middle child that feels just as rushed as everyone makes it out to be.

Cream of the crop

Though there are certain stylistic trade-offs going from the original to the remake, Dead Space '23 is an exceptional remake that maintains the expected qualities of the series while taking the liberty to add and improve in small but substantial ways. There are certain narrative changes I don't care for, and the game manages to be more brutalistic and unnerving than the original in some points while oddly toned down in others. What can't be disputed is that the gameplay experience has been massively improved from the '08 title- a fully connected Ishimura and the addition of Dead Space 2 mechanics help bring it up to snuff and make it about as replayable as the sequel. Regrettably, however, there are a number of ways in which it still doesn't quite reach the same level of polish and excellence of 2- there are buffers on weapon switch/alt-fire in certain scenarios, and movement, zero-g navigation, UI usage, and kinesis are all notably clunkier than their counterparts in Dead Space 2. If Motive intends to remake 2, they will have a lot of cleaning up to do on the mechanics side of things. Optimally, I'd like to see them work on Dead Space 4 instead, as I'm more curious to see them take us somewhere fresh and new within the Dead Space world rather than fully retread the trilogy.

This review was half complaining but it's only because this remake is excellent, and its flaws should be acknowledged so as to help make a future installment as great as it can possibly be. I love the changes to the upgrade bench, the reimagined spaces, and the massively upped replay value. A solid 8.5/10.

I'm evil

The performance is the only scary thing about this game. I'm getting frame drops and constant stuttering when running this at 1440p on low/medium settings with a 2070 Super. Game crashed within a half hour when trying to load a save from the main menu. A number of audio glitches and a UI bug where I couldn't scroll past a couple of options. Pair it all with bland, boxed-in melee combat and forgettable monster designs to form The Callisto Protocol- the next coming of Dead Space this is not. Though it was predictable from the gameplay previews alone, I wanted to hold out hope.

Wait for a patch and at least a 50% discount.

Fallout 4 massively overhauls and introduces a lot of great role-playing freedom to the series while simultaneously retaining and introducing faults. The rebalanced SPECIAL and direct tie it has to your perks means you can no longer negotiate the end of a war while being the most uncharismatic person alive, nor can you be the master of lockpicking as a bumbling 1-Perception moron. I can be a deadly sword-wielding assassin, a minigun-toting, Power Armour-donning tank, or the smoothest talker in the wastes...but I can't switch to any one of them at a whim. In other words, builds are more devoted to either powerful focuses or average jack-of-all-trades than they've ever been, because level ups are now noteworthy increases to singular skills as opposed to an obligatory cheesing of INT to rush every tag skill to 85/90 by level 18, with enough spare skill points to get other good stuff to at least 50 or 60.

This, however, calls into question the need to choose singular skill increments as opposed to seeing growth spread-out at a decent ratio to your actual in-game actions, as well as the choice to keep INT as a leveling-oriented attribute (it boosts XP gain here). While Skyrim's leveling system is technically a way of answering this, that has faults of its own- the need to grind levels in crafting and lockpicking/hacking sounds like a nightmare on repeat. If anything, it may actually be wisest for Fallout games going forward to simply detach INT from skill points and maintain a flat amount all characters receive, while retaining 4's rebalanced SPECIAL and the reliance of perks on them, with perks themselves resuming their additive build-forming role from prior games.

Settlement-building and gear modding are fantastic new roleplaying additions. True, true- weapon mods were available in New Vegas, and enchantments were around in Elder Scrolls for years. However your approach to them now is vastly different- every random piece of physics-enabled junk, the set dressing that has always put Bethesda above the rest in terms of world building and immersion, is now a valuable bit of loot to take home with you and render into an improvement to weapons, armour and your home of choice. I do not lie to you when I say that picking up desk fans, tin cans and clocks is the best that Bethesda's loot game has ever been. Not only does it turn what was once an aesthetic highlight into an essential part of exploration, it does away with the disappointment you could previously encounter when clearing a dungeon only to find that there was nothing ultimately worth your trouble.

Also, can we really ignore that Fallout 4 gives us the ultimate freedom to facilitate every part of our "lives" in a way we've never had before? For the first time, you can put together your own place of residence and trade, replete with every form of crafting you will require to put together your build- all just through the efforts of acquiring the materials and skills needed. In the past, we had to choose from a limited supply of homes within populated areas, and deal with the sniveling masses for their vending and workshops. Now you're empowered to do it all for yourself and never step foot inside any town other than your own, should you so choose. That right there, the actual moment-to-moment actions you take, is the real strength of Fallout 4's roleplaying. I feel that suggesting it's not an RPG or true Fallout game is basing it off of a hard-coded decision on how and what a Fallout game should look like, rather than the end result of what playing the game for what it is will get you. Because this game right here is very much Fallout, and a strong progression for the series in several novel ways.