DavidSlack110507
141 reviews liked by DavidSlack110507
Tunic
2022
A wonderfully charming game that takes a basic Legend of Zelda-esque foundation and twists it in a meta, but quite engaging manner.
The best thing Tunic does is how it mixes the typical Zelda / Metroid-vania style of progression, almost exclusively locking you out of areas due to the lack of the right item, and enhances it with knowledge-based progression.
Tunic isn't exclusively based on locking you because of something you don't have, and instead by things you don't know. And this is done through great map design and an ingeniously cute Game Manual collectible, with plenty inside ready for you to decipher it
The best thing Tunic does is how it mixes the typical Zelda / Metroid-vania style of progression, almost exclusively locking you out of areas due to the lack of the right item, and enhances it with knowledge-based progression.
Tunic isn't exclusively based on locking you because of something you don't have, and instead by things you don't know. And this is done through great map design and an ingeniously cute Game Manual collectible, with plenty inside ready for you to decipher it
Open Roads
2024
Open Roads is a game that has had a very rough development history. Back in 2021, Fullbright's Co-founder and Open Roads' creative director stepped down from his role on the game following allegations of mistreating employees and fostering a toxic work environment. Many employees ended up leaving the project due to the co-founder's terrible actions/behavior. The remaining employees ended up restructuring the project, and last year, the dev team and the game itself ended up splitting from Fullbright entirely! As someone who was interested in the game following its initial reveal back in 2020, I wondered how the game would turn out or if it would even see the light of day. Now the game has finally released and there's a lot to talk about.
The game is centered around 16-year-old Tess and her divorced mom, Opel, as they set out on a road trip across Michigan to uncover the mystery behind Tess's recently deceased grandmother, Helen. While the mystery serves as the driving force for the journey, the game puts a lot of focus on Tess and Opel’s relationship and how they handle Helen’s passing, and their current circumstances. The voice acting is amazing and helps both these characters feel authentic. I liked the game's portrayal of generational trauma and familial bonds but it could’ve been executed better.
It’s very short, I clocked in at around 3 hours and the game really doesn’t make the best use of its runtime, especially in the later part of the game. There are a few moments that just don't go anywhere and it just felt very abrupt near the end. It definitely would've benefitted from a slightly longer runtime.
For most of the game, you're walking around an area, interacting with the environment, and picking up objects, leading to dialogue between Tess and Opel. This is very usual walking simulator stuff, but what makes it stand out is how the game blends a 2D hand-drawn art style for the characters and a realistic 3D style for the environment around them. It works very well in the game's favor and helps make the world more immersive and the characters very expressive. This is one of the things this game did best and a main highlight for sure.
Despite my issues with how some parts of the story were handled, I enjoyed it. It's short and on Game Pass, so it wouldn't hurt to give it a try!
The game is centered around 16-year-old Tess and her divorced mom, Opel, as they set out on a road trip across Michigan to uncover the mystery behind Tess's recently deceased grandmother, Helen. While the mystery serves as the driving force for the journey, the game puts a lot of focus on Tess and Opel’s relationship and how they handle Helen’s passing, and their current circumstances. The voice acting is amazing and helps both these characters feel authentic. I liked the game's portrayal of generational trauma and familial bonds but it could’ve been executed better.
It’s very short, I clocked in at around 3 hours and the game really doesn’t make the best use of its runtime, especially in the later part of the game. There are a few moments that just don't go anywhere and it just felt very abrupt near the end. It definitely would've benefitted from a slightly longer runtime.
For most of the game, you're walking around an area, interacting with the environment, and picking up objects, leading to dialogue between Tess and Opel. This is very usual walking simulator stuff, but what makes it stand out is how the game blends a 2D hand-drawn art style for the characters and a realistic 3D style for the environment around them. It works very well in the game's favor and helps make the world more immersive and the characters very expressive. This is one of the things this game did best and a main highlight for sure.
Despite my issues with how some parts of the story were handled, I enjoyed it. It's short and on Game Pass, so it wouldn't hurt to give it a try!
The Thaumaturge
2024
A gripping page-turner of an adventure. The entire experience is marred by poor animation transitions, or rather the lack thereof, and various instances of clipping fabrics, character heads spazzing out wildly, buttons on coats floating where they shouldn't, and whatever other minor presentation blemishes escape my present recollection. Such as the various instances of pop-in.
What I'm getting at is that this is a loveable piece of jank that I look forward to re-experiencing someday in order to angle for different outcomes.
I found the combat system very easy, even on Challenge difficulty, only wiping twice throughout the entire campaign, but it provided enough variancy in the encounters that I managed to keep entertained. I find random encounters so distasteful largely in part due to how rote and routine they become after the optimal series of commands is discovered. Thankfully Thaumaturge seemed to be comprised entirely of hand crafted encounters of admittedly samey ruffians. From one encounter to the next I often felt the need to evaluate for a moment before committing to a plan of attack that might be very different than the input order I employed in the previous encounter.
Wiktor was a wonderful protagonist to puppeteer. With plenty of opportunities to relish in substantiated pride, regret, compassion, a whole gamut of compelling emotional drama with which to weave a personalized journey through this lovingly detailed rendition of Warsaw wherein demons and warlocks are engaged in webs of intrigue.
It bears mentioning that beyond the combat there's little to no game here besides the dialogue tree. Investigation and deduction are performed automatically by the objective wisps, leaving "clues" to serve the purpose of flavor-text dispensers. It'll lack mass-appeal to the general gaming audience much like any other visual novel.
If this gets a round of polish patches I expect it to enshrine itself as being quite good. It's the sort of game that's best experienced when you're in no real hurry to get anywhere and want both a nice book and a nice mini-series to occupy your time.
What I'm getting at is that this is a loveable piece of jank that I look forward to re-experiencing someday in order to angle for different outcomes.
I found the combat system very easy, even on Challenge difficulty, only wiping twice throughout the entire campaign, but it provided enough variancy in the encounters that I managed to keep entertained. I find random encounters so distasteful largely in part due to how rote and routine they become after the optimal series of commands is discovered. Thankfully Thaumaturge seemed to be comprised entirely of hand crafted encounters of admittedly samey ruffians. From one encounter to the next I often felt the need to evaluate for a moment before committing to a plan of attack that might be very different than the input order I employed in the previous encounter.
Wiktor was a wonderful protagonist to puppeteer. With plenty of opportunities to relish in substantiated pride, regret, compassion, a whole gamut of compelling emotional drama with which to weave a personalized journey through this lovingly detailed rendition of Warsaw wherein demons and warlocks are engaged in webs of intrigue.
It bears mentioning that beyond the combat there's little to no game here besides the dialogue tree. Investigation and deduction are performed automatically by the objective wisps, leaving "clues" to serve the purpose of flavor-text dispensers. It'll lack mass-appeal to the general gaming audience much like any other visual novel.
If this gets a round of polish patches I expect it to enshrine itself as being quite good. It's the sort of game that's best experienced when you're in no real hurry to get anywhere and want both a nice book and a nice mini-series to occupy your time.
where is this girls mom?
It's a pretty decent expansion to the main game, though it had moments where I'm thinking.... is this Resident Evil? Offers some even nicer closure to Ethan's story. Hoping for RE9 we are done with the Winters'. Loved Ethan but with some gone it's no longer interesting.
Was hoping for some answers about the main game's ominous ending, yet nothing. Was nice to see Rose interacting with Eveline since she was another big positive
that the reboot had to offer. Guess we'll see where 9 takes the series. I'm assuming we'll see some recognizable names.
Was hoping for some answers about the main game's ominous ending, yet nothing. Was nice to see Rose interacting with Eveline since she was another big positive
that the reboot had to offer. Guess we'll see where 9 takes the series. I'm assuming we'll see some recognizable names.
This review contains spoilers
I almost never review DLC but actually have a few things to say about this game.
The Shadows of Rose campaign essentially consists of two retreads of locations from RE8 - Castle Dimetrescu and House Beneviento. On the surface this sounds like it’d be a big problem, but for me at least it really wasn’t. The reasons for this differ between the two locations.
For Castle Dimetrescu, gameplay is changed significantly from the base game and is in many ways very close to the gameplay from RE2R. You’re given very little ammo, an open layout, slow movement, enemies that kill you in two hits, and they even throw in a version of the defensive items from that game. This makes combat encounters deeply tense and strategic. Do I run from these enemies? Is there enough space that I won’t get grabbed? Do I use ammo or save it for when I’m cornered? Do I use Rose’s stun power or do I save it to use as a defensive weapon in case I get grabbed, etc. Shadows of Rose does this gameplay really well, and I had a blast during my hour or so playing through this segment. Granted, the level design isn’t entirely suited for the RE2R style of gameplay but it works well enough to still be a genuinely fun time. We saw with RE3R that the gameplay mechanics of RE2R are strong enough to withstand being paired with somewhat incompatible level design and the same is true here.
House Beneviento is basically the same as it was in the base game, which is a really scary haunted house (I mean that specifically in the theme park haunted house way) where gameplay consists of puzzles and largely on rails chase segments. House Beneviento and it’s gameplay format was so scary and so compelling in the base game that I essentially didn’t mind seeing more of the same here. Shadows or Rose does add a unique stealth segment to this part of the game, which worked well enough. Best descriptor of it that I can give is it feels like all the other one-off stealth segments you sometimes see in non stealth games.
Nothing particularly interesting was done with Rose’s character in this DLC. This is mostly a sweet story about her coming to terms with her mutation and the death of her father. It’s all decently well done and there were a couple genuinely touching moments but nothing too special. I was curious to see how Capcom would go about their policy of never showing Ethan’s face in this game, and I’m happy to report they did it pretty well. The attempts to obscure his face were done in a way that felt mostly natural - especially if you’re not looking out for it. I’m glad they didn’t go the route of making self conscious jokes about hiding Ethan’s face in contrived or unrealistic ways. That would have been lame. That’s the only word I would have for something like that: lame.
Writing this review mostly just to praise the excellent Castle Dimetrescu section. I really wish RE7 had gone more with this style of gameplay and balancing. I think it would have still worked in 1st person and in combination with that games amazing atmosphere and writing it could have been a home run.
The Shadows of Rose campaign essentially consists of two retreads of locations from RE8 - Castle Dimetrescu and House Beneviento. On the surface this sounds like it’d be a big problem, but for me at least it really wasn’t. The reasons for this differ between the two locations.
For Castle Dimetrescu, gameplay is changed significantly from the base game and is in many ways very close to the gameplay from RE2R. You’re given very little ammo, an open layout, slow movement, enemies that kill you in two hits, and they even throw in a version of the defensive items from that game. This makes combat encounters deeply tense and strategic. Do I run from these enemies? Is there enough space that I won’t get grabbed? Do I use ammo or save it for when I’m cornered? Do I use Rose’s stun power or do I save it to use as a defensive weapon in case I get grabbed, etc. Shadows of Rose does this gameplay really well, and I had a blast during my hour or so playing through this segment. Granted, the level design isn’t entirely suited for the RE2R style of gameplay but it works well enough to still be a genuinely fun time. We saw with RE3R that the gameplay mechanics of RE2R are strong enough to withstand being paired with somewhat incompatible level design and the same is true here.
House Beneviento is basically the same as it was in the base game, which is a really scary haunted house (I mean that specifically in the theme park haunted house way) where gameplay consists of puzzles and largely on rails chase segments. House Beneviento and it’s gameplay format was so scary and so compelling in the base game that I essentially didn’t mind seeing more of the same here. Shadows or Rose does add a unique stealth segment to this part of the game, which worked well enough. Best descriptor of it that I can give is it feels like all the other one-off stealth segments you sometimes see in non stealth games.
Nothing particularly interesting was done with Rose’s character in this DLC. This is mostly a sweet story about her coming to terms with her mutation and the death of her father. It’s all decently well done and there were a couple genuinely touching moments but nothing too special. I was curious to see how Capcom would go about their policy of never showing Ethan’s face in this game, and I’m happy to report they did it pretty well. The attempts to obscure his face were done in a way that felt mostly natural - especially if you’re not looking out for it. I’m glad they didn’t go the route of making self conscious jokes about hiding Ethan’s face in contrived or unrealistic ways. That would have been lame. That’s the only word I would have for something like that: lame.
Writing this review mostly just to praise the excellent Castle Dimetrescu section. I really wish RE7 had gone more with this style of gameplay and balancing. I think it would have still worked in 1st person and in combination with that games amazing atmosphere and writing it could have been a home run.
WWE 2K24
2024
DISCLAIMER: I got a reviewer key fo free to play this game earlier.
Tl;dr: It's good, but it could've been great.
Both MyRise campaigns are really good, the best they have ever being in this kind of game (maybe i'm little biased towards Jacob Cass storyline in RTWM WWE '12) but they are fun.
They were written by Drew Gulak himself and as a guy from the business he knows how to make interesting stories. I thought the women MyRise was significantly more well written than the male one though, it legit got me emotional, but both were fun.
Universe Mode is LITERALLY THE SAME THING as last years, including that stupid bug in which someone would cash-in but even if they lost the match in the PLE they would still have a match against you in RAW and Smackdown, it's basically "yeah this MITB contract only expires once you manage to win the title"
MYGM is fun, more of the same.
Showcase Mode needs to be gone, it doesn't even make sense at this point.
The idea of adding save-states to CAW/CAS is really good, and i wish they add that to Create a Moveset in future games as well, i was creating a moveset of one of my CAS and my game crashed (and i live in a third world country where the energy might go out randomly) so i had to do it all over again.
The strikes trading mini-game is fun, but if they managed to do that with chain wrestling at the same time, it would be even better. Speaking of chain wrestling, we now get crawl pins back which are always awesome.
I feel like super finishers should be 2 finishers bars only, you most likely won't have 3 bars of finisher unless you really pad out the match. But they are cool, i just wish we can remove the drunk effect.
Also you can deactivate HUD while spectating AI x AI this year, which it was in overdue time.
For last i'll speak for the DLC, they were announced and they are cool as hell, but man, CM Punk, Dragon Lee, Jade Cargill, but man, i really, really wish we got the Moves Pack DLC back. We are limited to having moves only WWE wrestlers have, so most of the moves that are in the game that aren't from any of them, came from some of these packs back in the Yukes day. The Moves Pack DLC were basically indies/Japan moves pack which were incredibly cool. We still don't have Kevin Owen's avalanche Fisherman Buster - a move he does basically every match - and Kevin Owens has been in this games for like... 6 years already? or more? Also we have 4 burning hammers but only one animation for the Emerald Flowsion that is probably 8 years old at this point. I was expecting a new one for Gunther's Last Symphony.
They apparently made create an arena worse but i guess they will fix it with the time.
It does feel like a DLC to WWE 2K23, but it feels like a huge DLC. Something like Phantom Liberty was to Cyberpunk and i don't really mean this in a bad way.
If you are a wrestling fan, you won't find anything better for sure. But i'm still hoping for that definitive WWE game experience in which we still don't have. We are this close to greatness.
Tl;dr: It's good, but it could've been great.
Both MyRise campaigns are really good, the best they have ever being in this kind of game (maybe i'm little biased towards Jacob Cass storyline in RTWM WWE '12) but they are fun.
They were written by Drew Gulak himself and as a guy from the business he knows how to make interesting stories. I thought the women MyRise was significantly more well written than the male one though, it legit got me emotional, but both were fun.
Universe Mode is LITERALLY THE SAME THING as last years, including that stupid bug in which someone would cash-in but even if they lost the match in the PLE they would still have a match against you in RAW and Smackdown, it's basically "yeah this MITB contract only expires once you manage to win the title"
MYGM is fun, more of the same.
Showcase Mode needs to be gone, it doesn't even make sense at this point.
The idea of adding save-states to CAW/CAS is really good, and i wish they add that to Create a Moveset in future games as well, i was creating a moveset of one of my CAS and my game crashed (and i live in a third world country where the energy might go out randomly) so i had to do it all over again.
The strikes trading mini-game is fun, but if they managed to do that with chain wrestling at the same time, it would be even better. Speaking of chain wrestling, we now get crawl pins back which are always awesome.
I feel like super finishers should be 2 finishers bars only, you most likely won't have 3 bars of finisher unless you really pad out the match. But they are cool, i just wish we can remove the drunk effect.
Also you can deactivate HUD while spectating AI x AI this year, which it was in overdue time.
For last i'll speak for the DLC, they were announced and they are cool as hell, but man, CM Punk, Dragon Lee, Jade Cargill, but man, i really, really wish we got the Moves Pack DLC back. We are limited to having moves only WWE wrestlers have, so most of the moves that are in the game that aren't from any of them, came from some of these packs back in the Yukes day. The Moves Pack DLC were basically indies/Japan moves pack which were incredibly cool. We still don't have Kevin Owen's avalanche Fisherman Buster - a move he does basically every match - and Kevin Owens has been in this games for like... 6 years already? or more? Also we have 4 burning hammers but only one animation for the Emerald Flowsion that is probably 8 years old at this point. I was expecting a new one for Gunther's Last Symphony.
They apparently made create an arena worse but i guess they will fix it with the time.
It does feel like a DLC to WWE 2K23, but it feels like a huge DLC. Something like Phantom Liberty was to Cyberpunk and i don't really mean this in a bad way.
If you are a wrestling fan, you won't find anything better for sure. But i'm still hoping for that definitive WWE game experience in which we still don't have. We are this close to greatness.
Dead Island 2
2023
A real load of mid. Has an interesting vision but follows the kind of generic game and level design that's plaguing the industry at the moment. I'd rather play Dying Light because this is just a watered down version with unfunny humour and cheesy dialouge, but I can appreciate some of the more satire missions even if they do make my skin crawl.
Coming off the back of the OG season which was Fortnite's biggest player peak ever, this season in my opinion really delivers. I love the addition of weapon modifications, they make the smaller loot pool feel very different each game. New map took a bit of getting used to for me but in the end I liked the locations enough.
Battlepass was pretty good, Peter Griffin being in it feels like a fucking fever dream. I think that Fortnite is moving away from doing an overall storyline which at this time in the games lifespan might be the best move. The addition of the other games was novel at first but I haven't touched any of them in months. Quick ranking below:
1. Fortnite Festival - (Im a big guitar hero fan so fav by default)
2. Lego Fortnite - (Really cool concept but not enough content)
3. Rocket Racing - (From what I played it was the same thing over and over again)
I really enjoyed this season, eager to see where Fortnite goes from here
Battlepass was pretty good, Peter Griffin being in it feels like a fucking fever dream. I think that Fortnite is moving away from doing an overall storyline which at this time in the games lifespan might be the best move. The addition of the other games was novel at first but I haven't touched any of them in months. Quick ranking below:
1. Fortnite Festival - (Im a big guitar hero fan so fav by default)
2. Lego Fortnite - (Really cool concept but not enough content)
3. Rocket Racing - (From what I played it was the same thing over and over again)
I really enjoyed this season, eager to see where Fortnite goes from here
Dead by Daylight
2016
Dead By Daylight is frustrating when it comes to some toxicity from the playerbase. But the actual game itself is a horror delight. The horror version of Smash Bros.!
Bonus points for my favourite slashers Chucky and Tiffany being in the game. Now I just want a GG skin to complete the Chucky family, lol.
Bonus points for my favourite slashers Chucky and Tiffany being in the game. Now I just want a GG skin to complete the Chucky family, lol.
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