Recent reviews by Warden

Having backed this game on Kickstarter, and after being teased by the Prologue, I was really hoping to be swallowed up by this game. Instead, my feelings about this game after four hours are extremely mixed.

The good: Art direction was fantastic, not just in the pixel art, but also the Art Deco UI and text. Visually, this game is stunning. Also (this one's rather superficial) being set in Vancouver was awesome to reminisce personally.

The music and sound is hit or miss. There are uncomfortably long songs, and even longer gaps where it's just silence. Silence can be done well in select moments to build atmosphere and tension, but it can also just feel empty (or worse, prompt the player to wonder if it's a bug).

The story itself, in the most reductive interpretation, is not necessarily bad. But the storytelling - the way the plot is presented to us - is a mess. There is no semblance of pacing, flying from one plot point to the next at breakneck speeds of which even Call of Duty campaigns would be envious. There isn't enough runtime for this story be presented in a coherent manner. And whereas at least the game tries to pretend you're connecting dots in the first half of the game, the second half loses its marbles and seems to change into a new genre altogether. Gone is the detective work, the puzzles. The intrigue. Without proper time to digest developments in the story, the twists that follow either give whiplash, or subsequently lose all impact.

This isn't helped by the inconsistent dialogue either, which for a game that mostly revolves around its conversations is disastrous to player immersion. It seems that every few lines, I encounter awkward sounding sentences, missing words, or dialogue options that seem incongruent with the context or flow of said conversation. Occasionally, it seems to also manifest in the form of joke/meta responses, which might suit Howard's personality, but felt tonally jarring juxtaposed with the atmosphere the game is trying to set. The problem here is that the dialogue can't ever make up its mind, so a number of characters end up suffering from multiple personalities. For all the game's efforts to immerse the player, few things shatter verisimilitude quite like erratic characters. (Speaking of which, the motivations of some of the cast are themselves irrational within their setting, even contradictory at times, and there is no player agency to call them out on it.)

Also there's a lot of cursing, to the point where it can sound juvenile.

For me, this game overall feels like hugely missed potential. I went in without having read any reviews, but came out echoing a lot of their feedback. It feels rushed, wildly inconsistent in polish, and became more of a chore toward the end, which for a four hour game is impressive.

My original review for the Blind Forest ended by wishing I could experience the game for the first time again. In some ways, Will of the Wisps is the answer to that.

Graphics and music is once again top notch. The combination of Ori's art style and backdrop with Gareth Coker's soundtrack is truly one of a kind. The original themes are back in a fresh coat of paint, some themes familiar, others quite brand new. I suppose if there is one thing to nitpick, it is that the resolution seems oddly jagged in some scenes.

Combat is much better than Blind Forest; gone is the orb auto-attack spam, replaced by a kick-ass sword combo, a hefty hammer, bow and arrow, spear, and a bunch of other weapons that have their uses. The gameplay ramps up quickly in intensity such that you'll go from barely making some jumps to making gravity-defying slingshots at mach speed, all within the first few hours of the game. Ori was after all best known for the fluidity of its movement compared to other contemporary Metroidvanias. Gone too is the level up system; you now gain new abilities and "shards" through the NPCs and vendors you meet, which can alter your build or the overall experience slightly. There are now side quests, which mostly amount to atmosphere and world building, so YMMV. I found the experience charming and non-intrusive, so it was a welcome addition.

The story/ending was more abrupt than I expected, but without going into spoilers, I found its bittersweet nature to be consistent with the tone of the entire series. The only gripe I have is that having played through the Blind Forest, some parts felt like retreading old ground. The story elements seem too similar and that live comparison I was making was rather distracting.

Unfortunately, at the moment, the game also has some technical issues. The buzzing audio glitch was most pronounced in the prologue, but did slowly fade away as the hours passed. There are also a few bugs that can cause soft locks, although the back up saves and being able to warp to a shrine from anywhere helps in that regard.

With that said, I bought the game full price on launch and even with the distracting audio bug at the start, I do not regret a single cent. For someone who wanted more of the same, Will of the Wisps exceeded my expectations in almost every way, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Good game. Overall plot is a bit weak and seems to end right as the climax hits, but the whole setting feels alive thanks to its interconnected stages akin to the Soulsborne games, and thanks to incredible attention to world and NPC detail. After all the open world fatigue, I can really appreciate a game that knows how to balance player choice with a cohesive story. The game gives you a ton of freedom outside of a few story-locked sections, and the choices you make really can matter (as in you can straight up kill everyone you meet, and the story will acknowledge that).

This freedom extends to the gameplay. The game allows you be quite creative, using GLOO cannons to platform your way around locked doors, crossbow that can hit buttons from a distance to unlock things from behind a grate, and even grenades to literally recycle clutter blocking doors. Combat is also generally fluid, taking inspiration from the likes of Bioshock and System Shock, but inverse difficulty does take away from some of the 'horror'; at some point in the game, you will become loaded with shotgun shells and grenades of every kind, and mastered an array of alien abilities such that it becomes a bit of an a-click faceroll.

On the technical side, graphics are all right, music is great, and the game is pretty well optimized. I'd give it an 8 out of 10 - solid game not without its flaws, but also not without some highly commendable merits.

A better football game than FIFA, Rocket League masterfully incorporates pseudo-realistic physics and cars and enormous footballs into a whimsical, yet highly competitive game worth all the attention and praise it's getting, and more. Whilst the game doesn't showcase anything spectacular, it is admittedly difficult to set such high expectations for Rocket League which aims to be nothing more than car football -- and they do it damn well. Its developers have maintained a close relationship with the community and built on the game since launch, releasing free content alongside cosmetic DLCs and consistently providing its playerbase with QoL changes.

With Psyonix's careful attention and support, Rocket League has thrived and matured well. As it continues to improve, with modular training coming soon, there has been no better time than now for me to recommend this game with all the enthusiasm it deserves.

Quite the charming little game, Aviary Attorney was a very short, but sometimes hilarious, sometimes profound venture into an anthromorphic Paris of the mid-19th century. Sparrowson is at the heart of most of this hilarity, so it should come with no surprise that I felt his presence most acute and most memorable, from the puns (oh they are many in number) to his obsession with food; and for that, even a bumbling lackey as he may be, and for all the other slightly forgettable characters which come and go, I can only express my absolute approval and recommendation of this game.
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I'll try not to dillydally, so huge disclaimer: I've never played Ace Attorney. Therefore, I cannot speak from the perspective of an AA veteran on its relative difficulty, and what features it might borrow or drop.

The game moves quickly, and it will progress with or without you. There's a city map to travel around to gather your clues in your own free time, but if you miss something critical—tough luck. I enjoyed this aspect, as much as I'm sure others might be infuriated by it. It was one way to force critical thinking, even if one needn't wade far from the shallow end to arrive at the correct conclusion. Aside from that, it is pretty standard and the trial process is very easy to understand for a novice defense attorney such as myself. It's also quite convenient that time stops whenever you need to make an important decision (how I wish that was the case in real life).

Visuals and sound is famously crafted from public domain, so if you enjoy the works of J.J. Grandville, and the romantic pieces of Camille Saint-Saëns and his contemporaries, then this department should warrant no further scrutiny. I'm sure you'd not be reading this if none of that appealed to you in the first place.

So in short, Con(s): Short! (Seven hours approx. between multiple endings and a sizeable AFK session), and (for the most part) Easy; the story is intriguing and fun-filled, but the few cases you do get liberty in are only difficult because you run out of time trying to acquire a piece of evidence in a specific order, or on a particular date.

Pro(s): Everything else, honestly. Music, art, writing, characters and their interactions all play a crucial part in creating this charming atmosphere, plus they're all so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ADORABLE.

It seems now is a great time to discuss the game with the recent microtransaction update and talk. To those of you comparing Tripwire to Overkill, I can only laugh.

First off, the elephant in the room: Tripwire never promised to not include microtransactions in this game. If you came from KF1 thinking they wouldn't do the same thing as they did before, shame on you.

Secondly, they are purely cosmetic, 100% optional, and it seems a large quantity can be obtained only through game time, free of charge. TW themselves explained that releasing Trading Floor on EA was to test the waters better, presumably (and hopefully) so it is balanced for the full release.

Thirdly, and most importantly to many I think, is that this was not implemented at the cost of further content (Source[www.kotaku.co.uk]), much needed content. The game has been slow to update, but this announcement is preceeding another large one soon. In that article, I quote:

Originally posted by John Gibson:

One common piece of feedback we're seen since we announced the Trading Floor is that some players are upset that we added this system in Early Access, with the feeling that we should be spending our time on making playable content, not on adding an in-game economy. First let me say that about 90-95% of the items we're shipping with the Trading Floor were made by the community. Second, the developers working on the Trading Floor backend are not the same developers that make maps, weapons, monsters, gameplay, etc. So to put it another way, the Trading Floor in no way delayed or impacted when new gameplay content would ship.

And lastly, most of these skins will be created by the community, and help fund the game for free content in the future considering KF1's business model. The only difference between the two? One is called DLC and bought through Steam's Store Page and the other is bought in game.

Of course, DLC weapons like the Zweihander and Flare Revolvers (and Buzzsaw Bow to an extent) from KF1 were bordering on overpowered, and seeing as they may add "weapons with new gameplay" in the future, I hope to god they're better balanced.

That sums it up for now, until next time I decide to update my review. Nothing much as changed for me. Maybe you hate paying for skins with a passion and any game that dares to use that kind of business model. That's fine. Maybe it's because KF2 has released updates much slower than you can accept. Maybe it was the recent debacle with Payday 2 that has the fact checking all wonked and maybe you're terrified KF2 will be going down the same road. It's not for me to say where it will go, but from the update notes at least, that level of panic may be unjustified.

Another year, another Call of Duty!

This year, the game seems hit or miss in terms of running without problems. However you put it, it is a poorly optimized port mired in technical issues and bizarre bugs and glitches usually reserved only for Riot's spaghetti code. If you're not getting massive stutters or not starting the first thirty seconds of a game running 10 FPS on the lowest settings, then you may notice textures being slow to load, not loading at all, or the entire mesh missing or flashing in and out of existence after an hour or two of gameplay. The last symptom usually comes hand in hand with missing player textures, so be ready to fire at floating hats and guns if you notice walls disappearing. In addition (no I'm not done), the server likes to kick people in or from parties for no particular reason. There is the common complaints about TTK and lag compensation working ass backwards, but matchmaking has been kind to me, and rarely have I felt unfair in death. (It's usually because I suck, and not because of hitmarker city.)

That said, with some fine tuning, you can get it to work (if your computer isn't celebrating its tenth birthday) - lowering VRAM allocation, CPU core usage, disabling certain graphic settings and setting a Max FPS. I can run the game on High settings across the board on an i5-4670K, 8GB RAM and a GTX 770 2GB at a solid 80 FPS with little to no stuttering. I say this knowing without a doubt somebody with a better PC is unable to play the game, which is why it's hit or miss.

The game itself is pretty fun. Gun balance is fair and specialists are unique and interesting to play, though it seems to borrow the Brood War ideology in which nothing is overpowered if everything is overpowered, as many tread closely between balanced and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and it is annoying that you can get them without doing anything. Most maps range from mediocre to serviceable, notwithstanding a few outliers (my personal opinion). They tend to be small, three laned maps, so snipers are once again met with absolutely no compensation. Scorestreaks seem well balanced, but weaker than many counterparts found in Black Ops 2 due to their vulnerability to being shot down or destroyed (the VSAT/HATR can now be shot down, what?) The Hellstorm and Lightning Strike whiff more than they kill, RAPS meets Flak Jacket and dines in hitmarkers, and Rolling Thunder should rename to Crawling Thunder considering the pace at which the carpet bomb progresses. On the other hand, Sentry Turret, Talon and the Cerberus seems to be pretty useful still (can't confirm GI Unit/Mothership as I have not had the chance to use them yet), and the old trusty UAV/CUAV remains strong and a quintessential duo to a winning team. And lastly, there is flinch, and it is incredibly annoying on PC without Toughness to counter it. There is aim assist on consoles to mitigate part of the aimkick, but keyboard and mouse warriors will find themselves SOL and preaching to the altar of the Haymaker, because if you can't beat 'em, you join 'em.

The campaign is needlessly convoluted and suffers from lack of explanation, but the gameplay is well done and engaging, and the story, once you go back and look at it from a fresh perspective is actually quite good, which makes it all the more tragic how much of it is hidden and tucked away from the player on their first playthrough.

I cannot review zombies as I have not played it. Not yet. This review will not encompass zombies, so take that into consideration.

With all that's said and done, I will say this game is fun. Maybe not worth the full price, especially if you're not going to play zombies, but for $42 USD? Yeah I am satisfied. With modding to come in the future, and with proper care to patches and updates to balancing, this game may become a solid installment in the series for me. It innovates a little, but not too much; if you've never been a fan of CoD, Black Ops 3 won't change that.

Thus, my verdict hangs at a solid 7/10 for now, given its poor optimization. For comparison, I rated AW 6/10 for its fundamental gameplay issues and tardiness of balance updates, BO2 8/10 for its terrible lag compensation, CoD4 9/10, and MW2 7/10 for being utterly imbalanced. I chose to recommend the game because I have some faith in Treyarch to fix their problems, but do beware of the issues and the risks your purchase will be undertaking.

Truly one of the most poignant games I've ever had the pleasure of playing, partly in thanks to the spectacular soundtrack and a mesmerizing art style. I'm normally predisposed to disliking platformers as the genre has become stale and bloated with too much mediocrity, but Ori and the Blind Forest breathes new life for me, not so much through groundbreaking innovation, but just perfection in the tried and true formulas of the Metroidvania games that precede it. The complaint that there is too much glow sometimes is well founded and a legitimate criticism to consider, but the problem seldom surfaced for me and presented trouble only on a number of occasions I could count with one hand. Music/Graphics: 10/10

The story isn't anything too complex, or great, even, but good enough in its own right and good enough to be carried through with soaring highs and heartbreaking lows by a powerful soundtrack that seamlessly accompanies the gameplay and does not linger. Many people have shared their qualms about a certain part later in the story that robs the story of its impact, and whilst I can agree that the cutscene cheapened some of the emotions built up from earlier, it did not devolve into cheesiness and no groans nor eye-rolling occured. Perhaps some explanation regarding the Water Vein that Gumo used to revive Naru would have been nice. Story: 8/10

Gameplay is smooth and responsive and a joy to experience. Difficulty wise, the game suddenly becomes wildly difficult at the first escape sequence; though there was much fun to be had in the twenty hefty minutes it took for me to complete it, I can see that being a complaint when the hours preceding it was practically a walk in the park. As for me, the difficulty was a welcome change from the handholding many games these days are predilected to doing, which I find borderline patronizing sometimes. As always, YMMV, however. The transitions for the other escape sequences were much smoother and handled better. Gameplay: 9/10

Conclusively, with a personal aggregate rating of 9.5/10, I would most definitely recommend this game to anybody at its current price (even better on sale for sure) unless they dislike platformers more than I do, or have a lower tolerance threshold on the Cheese-O-Meter, or just really hate being emotionally manipulated by some of the cutest, cuddliest characters the gaming industry has ever seen. If you don't fit into any of those categories, then I strongly suggest you pick up this game and treat yourself to this spectacle of a game.

I wish I could go back and experience this all for the first time again.

Welcome to Skyrim, where if your computer isn't simultaneously crying and on fire at the same time after the installation of that newest 4k texture pack, you may need to mod some more. And then some more.

Warning: This puts your computer at a high risk of contracting CTDs.

There's no other game quite like it (even EU IV/CK). Has a lower learning curve in comparison, but it's still a sizable beast to conquer; there are lots of intricate mechanics and strategies you can find yourself learning hundreds of hours into the game. Oh, and it takes forever to finish a game even on Quick so if you're the impatient type, this game may not be for you unless you go Duel/Quick every game.

MP is fun. AI becomes much too predictable, so introducing the unpredictability of human thinking into the equation naturally mixes things up. The team mechanics for Co-op are interesting at first, but besides sharing beakers for research, there really isn't much to it and you often end up fighting for things like wonders, land and city-states like any competitor would. Also, no achievements can be unlocked through MP (except the one...), which is mind-boggling. As someone who dislikes the AI, it is annoying having to jump back into SP to get the achievements I would otherwise have received through normal play.

Balance wise, there are some aspects that could be improved; there are obviously superior wonders, civs, even resources (I'm looking at you, salt), as well as obviously inferior ones like Angkor Wat, Denmark and most of the plantation luxuries. Some units also have pretty crappy ugprade routes -- Pikeman, the most accessible and strongest Medieval melee unit suddenly becomes an at-best situational anti-cavalry Lancer, and the Crossbowman, also the most accessible and strongest Medieval ranged unit becomes a one range Gatling Gun. Range is huge in this game, so increasing the damage in compensation for the lost one tile of range is like cutting someone, then offering them a band-aid.

Technical specifications wise, the graphics are a nice upgrade from IV (and for a game released in 2010, it's fair). Some of the music is pretty awesome, but they're easily forgettable and as I already listen to other music while I'm playing, turning off the music hasn't impacted me at all.

All in all, a 9/10. I know most of my review has been negative, but anything not mentioned here, I generally endorse. These were some more pedantic gripes and very subjective, so as always, take everything with a massive mound of salt (those OP ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥).

P.S. Obligatory "One more turn..."