Recent reviews by DreamInWaves

So excited to see more content!

If you had the time to play one complete game before you die, what would it be?

For me I would want to play a campaign. The two that stick out in my mind are Dear Esther and Soma.

In Dear Esther you wake up on the beach of an island with only a small light on you. As you travel the island searching for the reason you are there and uncovering your past you discover chemistry symbols, quotes, and diagrams etched in the sand, walls of buildings, and stone cliffs. This game also questions existential philosophy and the cause/effect of our actions and the ripple that causes. There are no enemies, combat, or puzzles in Dear Esther. The experience is completely immersive in that you go through the game listening and absorbing the tale it has to tell you. The narrator actually changes how he tells the story to you every time you play, so I would want the one that I felt hit me the hardest.

If you enjoyed this game then I highly recommend playing Soma.

SOMA is a game where your character has sustained a brain injury from a car accident where your loved one has died. There is a new technology that can scan your brain and interpret the best course of recovery. During the scan you black out and wake up many years into the future in an underwater research facility. You search the base looking for help and information as to what happened. You learn a meteor has stricken the earth and purged it of all life on the surface, leaving only the people in the base. A terrible fate has fallen on them and it is up to you to find a way to continue on in this existential nightmare. SOMA brings into light many philisophical questions such as the purpose of life, what makes us human, and what happens after we are gone. SOMA gameplay consists of hide and seek horror mechanics and puzzles.

PINEVIEW DRIVE: This contains no spoilers, just gameplay instructions that I felt would of helped me when I played this game. Please do play Pineview drive. The sound design, atmosphere, and graphics are some of the most amazing i've seen in the horror game scene in a few years. The more you react to scares and do different things in the game it will adapt and attempt to scare you more. The health system is also based on this and how you react to scares.The scares and sounds will lead you to the next objective. This game does not hold your hand, you need to learn the twisting hallways of the house and where each room is, locked and unlocked. At some point it will become clear where to go or try as an objective, but it takes time to learn the house and plot to get there. You will arrive at a house that is almost completely locked up. You will need to find a keys over a total of 30 days to explore the house and property, on average unlocking a door or two a day. The day ends when you find a note that will expand on the story. The game takes patience. You will need to manage your light sources (match sticks and flashlight batteries). Flashlight starts to become unusable at 1 battery level. You will need to rely on lighting candles and jumping to and from lightsources to avoid losing health in the dark. Many who dislike the game run out of light sources and are lost in the darkness. You start each day with what you have left. There are additional spawns of batteries and matchsticks over the days throughout the already explored house. You can relight candle sticks. They will go out at the end of the night and they also have a chance of being blown out. The game has a day and night system, with the night coming sooner every passing day. If you take long enough and are unable to progress your character will remark about hearing a noise in a portion of the house or grounds to clue you where to go. The trick is to know where that is and how to get there. I found that it helped to find a place to hang out in the middle of the house conserving light sources and standing by a lit candle until your character gives you the clue to progress. I used a food storage room that opened from one side with a candle by the door and faced away from the window on nights I found I did not have enough light source to progress on my own and needed help. Even though this is in essence a key finding simulator, it takes a degree of skill to progress efficiently. After completing the game I had several critiques to the ending(the last night) as all the way to there I was blown away by the quality of the game. I felt the very tip of the end was lacking, but after understanding the plot and end, I accept it. On a side note in my opinion I wish the developer had put a limit on the matchsticks and candles to increase the difficulty and dismay camping. For instance candles would be spawned in a random condition (full stick, half stick, stub) that could hold a total of 3 times lighted by a matchstick and would degrade each time until they are unusable for the rest of the game. They would go out at the end of each night, and stay in the condition you left them in (3 use candle-> use-> lit-> chance of being blown out or night end->next day->2 use candle is there). I also would like if using a matchstick did not always work. The strike and spark, no fire (1/10 probability). It would make the decision to add a light or explore an area much more treacherous increasing the risk of taking a chance to find the keys. It also adds a level of punishment to new players who then learn throughout the nights that the candle resources are running out and would further push the player to learn how to conserve the resources and make smart decisions regarding paths to take through the house, learning new paths as shortcuts open up, and memorizing the layout of the house and candles. The game is full of easter eggs and is drawn from many horror sources. Enjoy!

This game is gorgeous. The ocean physics, day/night effects, reflections, textures. Granted I am playing on 4k @60 hz with highest graphics, but if you happen to see a video of this game on youtube, it does not compare whatsoever.

I do find that once night settles it makes exploration next to impossible. I will find if I am not at my location to hang for the night, that I will end up floating in the hopless dark at the surface terrified by knowing the unknown right below me in the black water. The on hand lighting equipment is far from beneficial unless near an object. So for the vast majority of the surface and immediate below, you are helpless at night. Near the bottom, you can get aproximattely 3 meters of murky distance out of the flashlight.

I personally found the gameplay intoxicating and loved the constant hunt for blueprints and treks out into the abyss constantly searching for material. I personally found that it did take me all of 14 hours to get a sea vehicle, but this could have been a personal fault as I've put off exploring the ship.

The game is very open ended, so you will have to find your own direction and ways to progress. There is some in game help with music cueing around different points of interest and waypoints through the communications array. I found that many times you would have to push yourself past the safe boundary in able to get what is needed to progress. I personally liked this and found it very realistic.

The enemies in the game are very difficult and are consistantly aggresive. The ocean is not friendly. Along with the soundtrack and sea creature screams/roars/whatTheHellWasThatNoise you will find yourself constantly on edge and "trying" to be aware of the environment. I say this because it seems with the constant threat of low oxygen at deep areas and aggresive nature of the creatures you can't help being hit from the back.

Athough the game is difficult, it is not unfair. The times I have died have been my fault for pushing too deep for too long. That is not to say that is not needed. You will find you are consistantly pushing and riding that fine line.

The game has initial help with learning how to go about, but I found this was very short. Although the game really leaves you to your own means on learning how to craft, wield, explore the environment I found that through just playing it seemed to come naturally.

The crafting is fair. I find deposits of materials are spread, but once you find where the spawns are limited to each environment and depth, it helps substantially. I did find that it seems that once you are in need of something specific, then it is suddenly not easy to find. This may have to do with some kind of "need" sensor many games instill.
I have found that the amount of items to craft and play with are limited at this point. Don't get me wrong, theres a ton there, and I have yet to break the 200 meter down mark so I could be wrong. I just feel like there should be more.

It is funny that unlike others now that I have found the point where there are no consistant questions or surprises and now finding a known comfort in knowledge I am unsettled. I wish for that disarray and frenzied thirst to learn quelled by the breakthrough of cognisance. This game really thrives on that quest to learn and I hope with the final release and coming updates that as more story is instilled, this comes back to me.

THE DOOM WE HAVE ALL WAITED FOR, THE SEASON PASS WE HAVE NOT

The single player campaign so far has honestly been the most refreshing immersive gameplay and the balance between plot and classic deathmatch style killing is perfect. Not only has this release featured throwback gameplay combat elements, it has completely out shown the recent trend of monotonous red screen duck and wait shooters that have become a fps genre norm.

Bringing back the classic health and armor pickups was genius, but I was not looking forward the the issues this classic system brought with limited item availability per level, the search this involved, and limitations it made. With this release ID has completely revamped the mechanic and has incorporated them into a driving force to live and push the player to take increasingly higher risks to succeed and excel in combat.

A problem with many classic run and gun shooters was in many ways the monotonous non stop action. There were rarely moments for the player to stop and be immersed in the story or environment. The constant push to continue moving the entire game caused in a large part a haze over the experience. Going through a level would often simply involve mashing keys and constantly clicking the mouse until the next loading screen. It even popularized buying a mouse with auto-fire button so you would not tire your finger and hardware.

With this release of doom it has not only brought back the positives of that classic gameplay but has remastered it in a way that brought a balance to combat, plot, unlockables, secrets, and character progression that is a evolution in a lot of ways doom 3 was with it's unique 2 way lighting engine that inspired a more reserved horror survival style incorporating the ability to choose between seeing the horror that befell UAC Mars and actually being able to combat it to survive.

I am 12 hours into DOOM and constantly remarking how impressed I have been so far and continue to be.

THIS IS THE DOOM WE HAVE ALL WAITED FOR.

Unfortunately, the season pass is not. At this point it is shown as only featuring content for online combative multiplayer and snap map features.

As a classic DOOM fan, I am not interested a COD online rehash or Halo reach style unlockable armor skin dress up features.

I am here for the campaign. The continuation of a world I have grown up with and continue to want to learn more about. The one that I am consistently learning more about every time I replay Doom 3 and re-live emails, audio logs, video training sessions, and immersive plot elements.

This recent release of DOOM brought back the classic gameplay I loved with the originals and paid respect to Doom 3 and continuation of the revolution in immersive content and gameplay.

The Season pass does not, but there is hope.

As doom 3 had a full game expansion, and wolfenstein the new order also has a full game expansion "bad blood" I am hoping that if there is not going to be included either several small dlc levels, expanded single player content included campain levels or secrets, weapons, mods, or the ability to co-op the existing single player campaign with increased difficulty included in this upcoming season pass then hopefully an additional full game expansion will be released in the near future.

As a long standing doom fan I have waited years for a new release. So often with new pc releases in the past couple years we have not only had sub par performance with console ports, bad hardware support, horrible optimization issues, locked or not available settings,but the fact that most games for pc upon release will crash and not even run until patched months later by the video card manufacturer as developer support after the base release is continually dropped soon after collection of pre-order funds.

ID delivered on it's promise to the doom community and brought a sequel we can stand by and continue to play for many years to come. They brought the PC gaming community a stable release including everything we need and continue to lack from most recent releases.

All I am asking for is the same I have been asking for many years now. I WANT MORE DOOM.