Recent reviews by El Buhdai

This game was pretty fun in the early tests and open beta. Probably the best imitator of the ever elusive Smash Bros. Progression was slow but not glacial. Combat was pretty fun and impactful. I've tried it again recently on Xbox and it's just pop-ups everywhere, multiple currencies, convoluted and complicated progression systems. It's just too much for this kind of game. The combat also felt very off.

A fighting game is best suited to the "pay once, and unlock most/all of the roster" business model. If you wanna bring out characters as DLC, that's fine. You can even charge for cosmetics if you want. But this time-tested model allows people to just pick the game up and play it with their friends locally. Nobody wants to grind for 100 hours on their account or spend 100+ dollars on character unlocks just to be able to have a decent roster to bring this game to a party with. Furthermore, no one wants to log into their fighting game to grind daily challenges. If someone logs into a fighting game every day, it's to lab and improve. People even do it for casual fighters like Smash bros.

Fortnite-style Live Service models and fighting games do not mix.

The SINGLE best Co-Op PVE game since L4D2, and the only reason there's a close second is because of Deep Rock Galactic. There's no time to explain. We must take Malevelon Creek!

EDIT: Constant crashes, graphical glitches, stuttering & terrible performance on a $3000 rig, infested with bugs that never get fixed. Content updates are also surprisingly slow and weak for such a big budget game. Review is now negative. You should only purchase this game if you wanna play the campaign. It's genuinely amazing.

Call of Duty has finally been modernized. I was tempted with MW 2019, but when I saw that they removed some of the crackhead movement, added some cool gadgets, and brought in mechanics that allow for a slightly more tactical & thoughtful approach, I bought my first CoD in 7 years. Campaign is great, graphics are really good, and the overall gameplay is awesome. Needs some early polish, but I'm excited to see how this game unfolds since there won't be another one until 2024.

Very few things in gaming are as scary as leaving your sub to repair the hull, only for it to begin sinking faster than you can swim when you only have a quarter tank of oxygen left. Good luck picking your stomach up out of your intestines after that.

Okay, the positive reviews for this game don't mention the issues or go into much detail, and the negative reviews are seriously overblown and don't give any credit to the incredible amount of polish this game has. Here's my take.

Pros:
- Parkour feels way better than it looked in the trailers, and is definitely an upgrade over the first game in every way so far. I'm very glad about this because I have been worried about that since the very first time they showed gameplay of it.
- Graphics are incredible. Post-processing effects are used really well here in a way that is immersive and not distracting.
- Combat is personal, visceral, and brutal. Another upgrade over the first game. There's more to do and it's more stylish than ever. Some of the animations, though, are not quite as buttery smooth as they are in the first game. However, unlike the first game, there's more strategy and tactics and it gets my bloodlust going in a way that usually only Chivalry 2 or Mordhau can.
- The world is absolutely dripping in character and detail, and it oozes atmosphere. You really get that "15 years later" vibe sold to you very effectively. There are also tons and tons of explorable interiors, and some of them can be pretty vast.
- Decisions, so far, matter. They didn't lie.
- Not broken and buggy at release. Very few bugs considering how ambitious and grand this game is. The bugs that I did experience were minor.
- The dropkick feels even better than the last game
- The soundtrack seriously has no right to be this good. I'm not exaggerating. It's a mix of great sound design and orchestral cues and it really elevates the moments in this so-so story into something that actually makes you feel. There is also dynamic music that matches the energy and intensity of Aiden's parkour. Great stuff.
- The city is utterly breathtaking. The gameplay gets sooooo much better once you reach the city. The map is a marvel of detail and level design. It's like a giant playground for your parkour skills, and it's a blast to navigate. Just like with the first map, almost every building in the city has some interior parts. Super impressive and definitely explains the long development time.

Notes (Pro or Con depending on the person):
- People say there's no sprint button and that running feels slow. From what I've seen they have all barely played the game. There's a "dart" ability that gives you a huge burst of speed at the cost of your stamina, and the decision to run automatically has saved me a lot of unnecessary key presses in a game where you spend 90% of your time running anyway.
- A lot of things about this game are very, very different from the first game. As you can tell from the reviews, some people will love that, and some people will not.
- It's a bit janky with some minor bugs, but it's not nearly as bad as most other games seem to launch these days. No bugs have been game breaking so far, and the worst bug only stopped me from progressing a story mission until I restarted my game. It worked fine after that.
- Some people say the combat is bad in their reviews, but these are usually the people who just clobber enemies with weapons until they die. This is not how you play Dying Light. Parkour combat mechanics (drop kicks, head stomps, redirects, throws, takedowns, head slams, etc.) exist for a reason. Spice it up! You will think the combat is bland if you don't play Dying Light like a Dying Light game. It's like someone who says Devil May Cry has bad gameplay but only uses the same attack over and over.

Cons:
- Voice acting is seriously hit or miss. Some characters like Aiden and other main characters are believable and get you invested in what they're saying, while others deliver lines so poorly that you can't help but laugh. Like the cadence is just all off.
- Janky physics and combat in co-op at launch
- Performance is weak even with DLSS, bad without it. I have an i9-10900K, 64 gigs of RAM, and an RTX 3080... Microstutters, potential memory leaks, and other issues are present in this game. I wonder if Denuvo is causing some of that. Hmmm..
- Ragdoll physics and physical interactions received a pretty serious downgrade in this game. Zombies are less likely to tumble off of high surfaces toward you and when they do, the animations don't transition to ragdolls nearly as smoothly as they did in the first game. The zombies just feel less physical and grounded overall. That was one of Dying Light's greatest strengths, and unfortunately this game does not carry on its legacy in that regard.
- More cutscenes than I've seen in a video game in a long time. I'm not exaggerating when I say there are some missions where there are around (or over) 10 cutscenes, or there's a cutscene every time you enter or exit a room through a closed door. It breaks up the flow of the gameplay way more than it should. There may sometimes be no more than two minutes between cutscenes in a mission and that's just not how games should be. I'm inclined to say that this is the worst thing about this game so far, and is unfortunately very likely to remain with the game until the end of time.

Overall, Dying Light 2 is excellent so far. As of writing I'd guess that I'm about a third of the way through the game and so far it's (almost) everything that was promised to us. The combat and parkour are better, the world is jaw-dropping, the graphics can be stunning, and the story isn't terrible so far (aside from the wildly inconsistent voice acting) Some of the decision mechanics have been scaled down to something that's actually achievable compared to what they promised years ago, but what remains is still enough to keep that initial promise of impactful narrative decisions.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FEBRUARY 2022 UPDATE:
The game's journey to improvement has been extremely slow and for my own credibility I cannot keep this review positive. One good thing is that DICE are listening to the community, but they've listened to the people who hate the game for one reason or another and quit, while leaving the people who still play this game out to dry. Let me explain:

They're adding useless features (like a reworked scoreboard... in Battlefield, a franchise that has 64+ players and isn't about K/D) that everyone who hated the game was asking for and as a result have pushed the first content drop all the way back to summer. This game will be out for 6 - 8 months before it receives a single megabyte of meaningful new content. I can only hope it's good.

Anyway, things that have changed for the better will have a "fixed" tag in brackets next to them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


There's a lot I could say about this game. I guess this is another one of those scenarios where Steam needs a sideways thumb or a "meh" button. I absolutely love this game and it's the most fun I've ever had with a Battlefield title (played every Battlefield starting with BF4), but do I recommend you buy it right now? Unless you can tolerate the bugs like I can, then absolutely not. Also, just because it's the most fun I've had in Battlefield, that doesn't mean it's the best one. That title goes to Battlefield 1 for me. That game was art.

This review is only positive because, while this game is not in a great state, it's not nearly as bad as the review score would suggest. I'd say 60 - 65% is more accurate.

Pros:
- Amazing graphics, sound design, gunplay, and physics as you'd expect from a Battlefield.
- Really cool map events like the rocket launch on Orbital
- Portal is incredible. It's great to be able to play past Battlefield titles with (mostly) their original weapons and balancing and a fresh coat of paint. It was also cool playing as WWII soldiers against 2042 specialists on Hourglass with a tornado. Watching futuristic jets fight back planes that are almost 100 years old right over your head is amazing in a way that I can barely even describe. Portal has serious potential.
- Just a really epic game overall with the map setpieces and the scale and verticality of everything
- Specialists don't hurt teamplay nearly as much as people say. They're all pretty team-oriented except for two of them.
- Tornadoes are sick

Notes:
- While the tornadoes are awesome, they could use some more gravitational pull at a wider radius.
- Maps are very wide open and often pretty flat with a couple of exceptions. I personally don't care but some people do so I just thought I'd let you know.

Cons:
- Weapon bloom. This was added after the beta which had amazing gunplay. I don't know why it was added. Maybe it's a bug? Maybe DICE consciously decided to throw their amazing gunplay out of the window to lower the skill gap? I don't know. But at least they've acknowledged it and are working to fix it. [This was fixed in an update]
- Some frustrating bugs like the no revive bug (stuck in a downed position and can't respawn or be revived. Only choice is to leave the game), the stuck crouching bug (this bug often leads to the no revive bug), and the bug where you sometimes can't be revived if you're too close to a wall
- Missing tons of QoL features from previous Battlefield games. K/D kids will whine about the scoreboard but to me it's the least important thing missing from this game. We need a directional indicator for the gunner seats in vehicles like in BF1 & BF5. We need a "nearby medics" indicator [this was added in a later update but was bugged]. We need a better UI that communicates more important information to the player during queue (only the party leader can see what map the squad has been placed on until the game starts loading, for instance). All of that is far more important to actual gameplay than a scoreboard so you can stroke your ego.
- Some maps are missing tons and tons of detail and almost look like unfinished Battle Royale maps. The biggest culprit is Hourglass. The problem isn't all of the sand, it's that the "village" has literally nothing inside of its buildings. No abandoned furniture, no decorations, nothing. This sort of emptiness is all over the place on the maps in this game, but it's the worst on Hourglass.
- Some vehicles are currently extremely overpowered (hovercraft, transport chopper) and the non-homing rocket launcher could really use a velocity boost. There's no reason a rocket launcher in 2042 should have a lower velocity than the ones in Portal which are all from the present day or the past. Also, why does a transport chopper have more powerful weapons than a literal attack chopper? Why is the hovercraft extremely fast and also capable of taking more rockets than the slower transport truck? [fixed]

With all these cons, you'd think I'd dislike this game, but like I said it's the most fun I've ever had with a Battlefield game and when it's fixed and finished it'll probably be one of my favorite shooters ever. Even with all the issues, Battlefield's unique brand of sometimes-chaotic, sometimes-strategic All Out Warfare still lives on. That said, it's far from the level of polish and quality of other titles so I can't say it's objectively the best. Come back in 6 months and see where it's at then.

P.S.: Dear EA, You're not used to being confronted with the anger of your consumers over your broken launches in the public eye, are you? Hopefully this "Mostly Negative" review score will encourage you to stop pressuring DICE to release their games before they're ready just so you can meet holiday sales expectations. Because of all these negative reviews, it's unlikely that BF2042 will ever have anything above a "Mixed" review score. This game should have come out in March and you know it. Peace.

Between the jaw-dropping physics and the unique and dynamic spell-creation system, I'm convinced that Noita is the undisputed king of emergent gameplay. The world is huge and full of secrets. The number of spells, perks and enemies in this game are well into the hundreds. Only the perks have less than 100 at around 90.

What does all this mean? Every run is totally unique. Every. single. one. The secrets you might find, the crazy encounters you might have, the deaths (or suicides) you may experience will be unique every single time. How many times have we heard that and not have it be true? Too many? Well, it's true here. There's a reason Noita has a 95% overall, and a 98% on its recent reviews. This game is impossible to put down.

Everything is satisfying because every action has a response in the world thanks to clever AI and amazing physics. But probably the best thing about this game is its enemy design and balance. I have found wands so powerful that they brought my $3000 PC to the 10 fps territory and allowed me to basically erase enemies in new areas I had never seen before, only to have a humiliating, swift death by cursed rock. No matter how powerful your offensive options get, you rarely find tools to heal yourself outside of the game's "checkpoints", and the only defensive options in the game require skill to use and cannot be relied on as crutches. That is the beauty of Noita. It allows you to do anything your brain can imagine with its systems as long as your PC and health bar can handle it.

I can't recommend this game enough. I wish I had bought it for full price instead of $15.

I have played all of the main Borderlands games except for the original and I must say, this is easily the best one without question.

Borderlands 2 was great fun towards the end, but only fun sometimes throughout most of the game. It was the first game I'd ever played where I was actively bored. Like, real "i wanna do something else" boredom. Borderlands: The Presequel had an interesting space and oxygen mechanic but it had a similar issue: inconsistent fun factor. Well, I'm happy to say that Borderlands 3 is the best Borderlands experience to date and the best looter shooter period. But considering almost every looter franchise releases with more bugs than content, that shouldn't be surprising. Here's a pros, notes, and cons list:

Pros:
- Hilarious and wild just like you'd expect if you played previous entries
- The graphics are way better than you would expect for a game with this art style. Like seriously, the environments are packed with character and detail. The textures are very sharp and lovingly crafted, and the lighting can be downright breathtaking in some areas. I know that sounds crazy, this is Borderlands right? I didn't believe it either.
- The gunplay is finally very satisfying. That was a huge problem in BL2 and BL:P. Reload animations here are some of the most creative I've seen, and the sound effects are chunky and powerful.
- The loot game is so addictive that I almost don't even care what's going on in the story sometimes, I just wanna experience the gameplay and the loot. I could keep playing this game for a very long time as long as the loot scales to keep up with me. I never got that same satisfaction from Destiny or any other looter. It's a feeling unique to Borderlands.
- So much content man. My brother and I are 50 hours in and still haven't played everything. We've beat the story but there are still side-missions. And boy lemme tell you, these are literally the best side-missions I have ever seen, though tbf I haven't played The Witcher. These side missions are hilarious, long, and sometimes escalate to insane conclusions. There are also so many of them that you can beat the game twice with side-missions and still have more to play I think.
- There are some characters I really liked despite the story not being that great. I felt like Tannis and Balex (voiced with character by Ice Cube) added a lot to the experience for their unique voice direction and charm.
- The bosses are amazing, but see the cons section...

Cons:
- The main story is weak. Everyone knows this. But tbh if you're playing Borderlands 3 for the story and not the amazing gameplay, I think you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. It's weird when the most entertaining story bits are in the side-quests, but here we are.
- There are still loot scaling issues with this game. story missions don't scale up with you all the time so if you wanna experience those amazing sidequests, you'll probably wanna play more than once. I'm guessing this design was intentional. Sometimes bosses drop loot that's way too weak because of the level scaling in this game, which brings me to the final, most major point of weakness in BL3:
- The difficulty. Man is this game easy... waaayy too easy. You guys remember Borderlands 2 where you'd go into some fights with barely any health or ammo, and where you'd have to use cover and abilities to bring you through each engagement because you'd be screwed without playing smartly? Well this game is so easy that I hardly even used my abilities until after we beat the game and started the raids (which are much more difficult). Most of the time if a AAA game is this easy, I stop playing it. I like a challenge and easy AAA games are boring to me. But Borderlands 3's gameplay and loot system are just so rewarding that I still kept playing it. Also, there's a harder difficulty but it only unlocks after you beat the game. There's also a Mayhem mode which increases difficulty in much more unique and innovative ways, but that's also only available after beating the game. So this game CAN get brutally, soul-crushingly difficult, but sadly you're forced to breeze through your first playthrough before you can access that sweet, sweet difficulty.

Overall, this is an amazing gameplay experience. The main story isn't the best, but the replayability, humor, style, guns, loot, and charm we all know and love from Borderlands are all here and better than ever. It's just a shame that the crushing difficulty of Borderlands 2 didn't make it to this one as well.

How to make Among Us:

- Remove the voice chat, better graphics, and fun physics from the Murder gamemode in Garry's Mod.
- Go to Pavlov VR's TTT mode and remove the heightened sense of personality and body language you get from hand gestures in VR. Also get rid of the fun, hands-on gunplay while you're at it.
- Banish the detective from the gamemode
- Flatten both games to 2D
- Build a time machine and go back to 2002
- Hire an artist from Newgrounds to create the visuals from your game so it can run on a digital thermometer for maximum playerbase growth potential.
- Wait 2 years after release
- Profit

I received this game as a gift. You'll probably enjoy this game more than I have. It's solid enough that I can't give it a thumbs down, but I guess I've played too much Murder in Garry's Mod, and too much TTT in Pavlov VR to find this interesting for more than a few hours. Plus I've run out of witty banter because it's the same thing over and over, and the limited gameplay mechanics don't allow for much variety compared to the physics and map design in Garry's Mod, and the VR of Pavlov. TTT in those games can play out very differently each game, whereas with Among Us there's only so much that can change between each round.

With that said, I always like to see smaller developers with a hit on their hands, so congratulations to them! It's just not for me.

Very good for venting your anger in 2020