Recent reviews by flea

It's a Rockstar game. Nobody will argue that the game itself is anything short of stunning. The delivery of the PC port could have been better out of the box, and the multitude of graphical options can be overwhelming. But once tweaked, the game delivers great visuals with decent performance on an average gaming PC.

For the most finicky of people, maximum settings do increase details and create an ever so slightly more impressive world, but the performance hit is large. It feels like the game was designed to hold a test of time, but as a result, even the best PCs out there seem to struggle maxing out the settings. A thing many top end PC owners and enthusiasts don't embrace too well.

And as per usual in the latter years, in order to increase profits, Rockstar pulled a business maneuver with RDR2 too. But as the developers cash in on their fat paycheck, the fans do seem to grow unimpressed with these sort of stunts. The Rockstar Launcher is like an icing on their cake of bad decisions.

When a company starts making way more money than they had ever planned, you wouldn't expect them to start risking their image in order to dig even more. Wake up Rockstar, you're not Ubisoft, get a grip !!

I feel like this game set out as having a very tight bond with our real world. As you kept learning more about the memories inside of our DNA, the templars and assassins, the first civilization and all of the misinterpreted historical events, you couldn't help but feel intimidated because it felt like you found out things that you shouldn't, yet they all felt so plausible. Everything was very sober and could easily be transposed into the real world. It felt like the templars (illuminati) really were a secret society. The lore was done superbly and the historical setting was the absolute best setting for what Assassin's Creed truly is.

But then slowly the franchise went on to lose it's bond with the real world. It started to push the lore's authenticity to the side and make way for cinematografic combat, cartoonish characters and overuse of the assassins-templars cliche. From the characters' attires to their lack of depth, most of the time. The first civilization was stripped off of their mistery and epicness to make way for poorly written and drawn characters in a soap opera drama.

The one true testament to this evoltion is Black Flag. Assassin's Creed's long adopted cartoonish style fit perfectly with the Pirates of The Caribbean style, hence the game's huge success.
The step back from the overused cliche also felt like a breath of fresh air.

Nevertheless, the general idea of the initial game was so good, that no matter how badly it was written from that point on, it was bound to have some success.

Probably my favorite GTA title. There's something appealing about the idea of the protagonist arriving in a cold metropolis after a long journey but being greeted with a warm welcome by one close friend (Mafia 2 did it pretty nice too). The fact that Niko is eastern european probably helps to my immersion as well since I am romanian.

I enjoy open worlds, busy cities and I have a great attention to detail. So maybe it's only natural that Rockstar is my favorite deveoper based on the games they deliver.

Rockstar used to be a respectable company but their decisions in the latter years have been questionable. Firing Leslie Benzies, banning mods, investing in the pay-to-win side of GTA Online, not supporting GTA Online against hackers, slacking in the development of their next GTA title.

I have been a fan of every GTA game since GTA 3, including RDR. But something happened to them after they released GTA 5. Something bad.

Hope they repent themselves with RDR 2.