Recent reviews by Matroska

WoaM is a great game but one that feels like there are bits missing here and there. To get the bad stuff out the way first, characters don't really have any arcs or personal stories unless it directly relates to the main (and only) story, the game abruptly switches from slightly repetitive police work to a high stake event, verging on the kind of themes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, then just ends. The ingredients of the climax are there from the start but they're just sitting around inertly, then right at the end rush in like a load of actors who missed their cue in a stage play. There are unwelcome lulls in the drama and plot build-up which could have benefited from some subplots to pick up the slack.

I think the reason for the slightly off pacing and undeveloped feel to the NPCs is that the protagonist has 3 personalities you can grow into by making certain choices, and as her personality takes shape it dramatically changes how the game plays. For example you can be empathetic with people, which not only changes how you can interact with people but also gives you unique skills that you use as if it was an RPG. In my case, I could take on the voice and appearance of other characters, or if I preferred I could wipe out their short term memory. For much of the game, what you're doing is just one of three possible paths. It gives it great replayability and a sense of ownership over the actions of the main character, but unfortunately at the apparent cost of the development time and effort being split across three paths (and at least two endings).

The story is interesting and understated (perhaps too understated as it was hard to get really sucked into what was happening) and there's some good twists and turns. I'd love to see more of the setting and learn more about its history and locations. One of the endings in particular begs for a follow up, which I hope we'll get one day. The music adds some much needed atmosphere and mood to proceedings, and the voice acting is top notch. I personally love the 90s-style adventure game graphics, although I can see that it'll be off-putting to some. One criticism, though, is that I thought the portraits and sprite work - which are both fantastic - were let down by the background artwork. I think the latter is also responsible for the weak atmosphere (by cyberpunk standards) which was another thing that held me back from getting swept up into the game as much as I'd have liked.

While I do think this is a great game, the aforementioned problems, especially the mild, plain atmosphere (not what you normally expect from cyberpunk) and underwhelming characterisation of the NPCs means that it's less than it could be; less than it was so close to being. Just a few upgrades or extensions to current features would make all the difference. For example, you can scan people's pulse rate as you talk to them. It's very common for it to not change at all even if they visibly go from relaxed to scared. Sometimes there are anomalies in their biorhythms that reveal they're not being entirely truthful. Clicking on the anomaly opens up new dialogue, yet I only saw that happen twice in my playthrough.

The next game, if the team can build on what they've achieved here, will be truly amazing. As it stands WoaM is a comfortable 7/10 that could potentially have been an 8 or even a 9 with some more time in the oven.

An amazing game in terms of atmosphere, writing, story and characters. The combat is fun yet shallow and shows a basic misunderstanding of how combat works in action games. For example, Geralt does a random move when you press a button meaning things like startup and recovery frames are therefore beyond the player's control. Most importantly, you can interrupt anything with a dodge at any point and dodges aren't limited by stamina, so Geralt is basically invincible most of the time. Even on the hardest setting of four, the game is pretty easy. The controls are a bit weird, for example, it can be difficult to loot bodies as Geralt will overstep the body so you'll lose the button prompt.

It's also incredibly glitchy. There are glitches like important characters not appearing (bizarrely, Roche may not appear at a certain location when the story means he's free to be there, he'll only appear there when the story means it's IMPOSSIBLE for him to be there). I often have to restart because Geralt can no longer pick up items. I had to restart earlier because Geralt could no longer use potions. There are really strange glitches still in the game like sometimes when you speak to a merchant, it clones a green version of the merchant. When this happens, you can't enter the shop screen. Quitting dialogue removes the green merchant and places Geralt where the green merchant was standing. CTDs happen every few hours so setting a regularly autosave is recommended. At certain locations, you hear female NPCs screaming even though there are none around (this is on an island in the middle of a large body of water). The list goes on and on.

Despite all this, I go back to the first sentence of this review. It's one of the most powerfully atmospheric games I've ever played. It moves between different tones fluently - one minute doing an urban murder mystery, the next creepy horror, the next romance. Many of the characters are wonderfully realised, even one-off NPCs you see for one quest. The Bloody Baron is one of the most realistic and believable characters I've ever seen in a game. What sets this game apart is the skill the developers have with making quests feel like interactive movies. They're not particularly open in terms of various paths or resolutions (see 'Divinity: Original Sin 2' for an example of that done very well) but they feel like a lot of effort was put into making them feel special and characterful. To be honest, a lot of quests are "go there, use Witcher Senses, (maybe kill something), come back". It disguises that very well. That's where the magic of the game lies, in making you feel part of the world and in making the world feel totally believable. As an RPG in terms of character customisation, it's shallow; as an action game it's a bit clueless and ramshackle; as an open world game it's good but nothing special in terms of number of activities and so on. But man do you feel like you're really there, really interacting with this cast of characters, really being a witcher in this awful, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ world.

This game seems to have been misunderstood and unfortunately underrated by a number of gaming journalists. It's very hard to explain because it's actually a pretty unique game, but you can think of it like Dark Souls meets Skyrim if you want a really lazy way of summing it up. That doesn't do it justice at all, because here we have people that have worked on games such as Resident Evil, Devil May Cry and Breath of Fire all coming together to deliver an incredibly atmospheric and compelling action RPG.

The story follows your character, who shortly after being created by you - with an excellent character customisation system - has his or her village attacked by an enormous dragon. After an ill-fated attempt to fight it, your heart is ripped out and eaten by the colossal dragon. Yet, somehow, you're still alive, albeit with a huge scar on your chest like Sagat. You can also hear the voice of the dragon in your head, urging you to track it down if you want your heart back. Then it's down to you to make your way in the world and find him, though your village is still reeling from the attack and many of the side quests are based around this, rather than some guy just wanting 20 mushrooms because he has in inexplicable craving for fungus all of a sudden.

Shortly after this, you're introduced to one of the game's most interesting systems; the ability to design pawns - AI warriors who you can program in fundamental ways to be the most useful sidekick for you. The really interesting thing is that other players of the game can rent your pawn off you. You keep your pawn, but a copy appears in the other players game and goes around helping them. Everything it learns, like how to defeat certain enemies and how to solve certain quests, will be remembered and when the player returns your pawn, it will be able to help you out with all its new info. And of course, you can also rent other peoples' pawns off them. Renting them uses Rift Crystals, an item that is commonly given out in game for completing quests, though pawns of people on your Friend List are free.

There's an interesting and varied character skill system, made all the more fun and addictive by the fact that the real-time combat is made by people who worked on Devil May Cry. It's not quite as exuberant as those games, but you can see the understanding and professionalism of those guys at work in this game's combat. Really, if you like games where you explore, go on an adventure, never know what's around the next corner and can expect a firm challenge from any enemies you meet (the larger ones can be climbed up, like in Shadow of the Colossus), and all in an open world with tons of secrets and hidden areas, you will love this game.

This is an RPG where you feel like you're on a genuine adventure in a world that resists your exploration, not just following waypoints and brainlessly turning in quests. This is an RPG where the world around you feels lived in and ancient, not just like a series of neat corridors or barren fields for you to traipse through on the way to the next generic kill quest or cutscene. It has that powerfully mysterious feel that Dark Souls has but in a wider, more open world and with a lighter atmosphere overall so it's not quite as oppressive as those games can be (this is both a good and bad thing according to taste, of course). Quite simply, I honestly can't imagine any RPG fan (who's not averse to action gameplay) disliking this game. Even if you're an RPG fan that doesn't like action gameplay, I implore you to make an exception this one time. In my opinion it's one of the best games ever made.

I like the idea of trying to make a turn-based game in the Dota style of various unique champions, esports-oriented and with a chunky, comic book aesthetic. Their tagline of it testing your brain not your fingers appeals to me. The problem is that not only does it gate the heroes behind a paywall, with a rotating trial period for them - more like LoL than Dota - it's also horribly P2W. There are special boosts you can use in battle that can really turn the tide; things like healing your team, doing direct damage to the enemy heroes or ship (the ship is basically the player in the Magic the Gathering sense) and even instantly killing enemy heroes. This leads to the typical P2W trap that you COULD grind to get them or you could just pay for them - and even worse, grinding to get them is going to be painful if other players have already bought them, or you could just grind in the versus AI training mode which will get tedious as hell.

It's a shame. If it wasn't for that element, and if all heroes were available like in Dota, this would be a great game to invest in. As it stands, it's on the level of a generic iPhone P2W game.

Everything it does, it does well. The graphics still look nice today, the story is interesting and well told, the characters are likeable and the gameplay is strategical and varied. The pacing is a little slow and you'll be spending a lot of time watching cutscenes, many of which are more slice-of-life than integral to the plot, though they're usually optional. There's replayability given both by the ranking system as well as the various possibilties of squad composition, including what classes you use, which individuals you use based on their perks (things like working better in desert environments because they grew up in one) and shortcomings (things like being allergic to pollen so losing HP slowly in pollen-rich areas) and how well they work together based on friendships and even sexual attraction and racism (some people hate being around Darcsens, a minority in this setting).

The port is good, various graphics options although nothing too advanced, and you can uncap the framerate from 30 - something many ports seem to neglect until people start complaining about it. I've had no crashes or performance issues yet apart from the fact it tends to crash on exit, but that's not really a problem. Saving and loading is instant and failure at a mission leads to the chance to immediately retry it from the start. You can also save during missions. While there's plenty of challenge here, it's not of the frustrating sort. There's also a NG+ option.

Highly recommended even if you don't normally enjoy the anime aesthetic, even more so if you do.

One of the best games ever made. You'll dress up as a pretty girl, you'll play steampunk Road Rash, you'll play a kind of weird RTS to protect a giant bird, you'll be duped by a talking cat, you'll fly through the sky and explore the oceans, you'll breed and race chocobos, and you'll watch a close friend be killed in front of you.

You'll escape from a dystopian mega-city, you'll visit a giant golden amusement park above a desert prison, you'll journey to your childhood home which was the scene of a massacre several years ago, you'll literally be inside the main character's mind trying to piece it back together.

Your party is a failed man in denial, a barmaid, a flower girl from the slums, a genetic experiment, a terrorist/father/coal miner, a depressed ex-astronaut, a clerical worker remotely controlling a cat, a ninja thief and a man who spent the last 20 years in a coffin.

And that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ music...

I pirated it and enjoyed it so much I bought it. Is there a higher recommendation than that?

Perfect balance between linear and open world. Has Metroidvania elements, and bits that feel kind of Resident Evil-y, with creepy environments in which you piece together horrific backstories. Looks ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing, plays really well, though at first the way Lara moves felt spongey to me, great multiplayer with interesting modes and lots to unlock. Just an all round great game led by narrative but with lots of exploring and discovering to do.

As good as they say it is. Visual design by the guy who did the same in Half-Life 2, but this time unrestrained by the Eastern Bloc stylings of that game. A lead designer responsible for Deus Ex. Mixes steampunk and a kind of paganistic magic, a sort of alternate history London with renaissance Europe and an Orwellian dystopia. There is so much detail to everything, each person is written smartly and with great nuance, and this is brought to the forefront by a strange heart item you have, literally a beating heart you hold in your hand, that can be used to hear secrets about each NPC. Stealth gameplay is satisfying, making you feel like a kind of magical Batman, and the combat is really physical and empowering, rewarding parrying and thoughtfulness.

On a technical level, it's easy to max out and looks great, and I haven't seen any bugs yet. Loading is quick, the areas are incredibly well realised, very vertical as well as horizontal, and full of hidden places, all with few loading zones. My only complaint is that it's actually really easy. I'm playing on Hard and I'm pretty bad at stealth games usually, but I'm finding it a breeze, to be honest. Even in a no-killing run (including not killing the plot targets and instead finding an alternate way to take them out the picture). Some people have said it's a short game - that's because they're an idiot who just ran past everything, didn't explore, didn't immerse themselves. I mean, Morrowind is also a short game in the sense you can complete it in around 7 minutes.

So definitely get it, but do yourself a favour and put it at least on Hard, preferably Very Hard.

Just see my Skyrim "review". The same applies here.