Recent reviews by Deus_nsf

I enjoyed this DLC, it has some great and strong points, but sadly I can't recommend it in the end.

As good as it can be, it is really not on par with the original FEAR experience (except the environments which are actually better lol). The game puts a much stronger emphasis on ranged combat, which could be fine if they gave you more ranged weapons, which they do not, even in the breakable crates.

This combined with the unnecessary buff to the maximum difficulty makes for a very frustrating experience, when you sometimes get killed in a second even if you were full HP, and by an early game assault rifle.

The story is kept to it's bare minimum here, with only 3 or 4 phone calls that has literally nothing interesting to say.

For the music, they reused the base game music, which is fine because the base score is amazing, but there are also new music pieces, made by a different composer, and I don't mean to offense that person but the new scores are pretty bad and feel completely out of tone with the FEAR atmosphere.

To it's credit it has some pretty cool and scary moments, and it's quite lengthy for a DLC (4-5 hours), but all the negatives combined with the difficulties of running this game on modern systems and occasional crashes makes it hard to recommend to anyone but the most hardcore fan of what is essentially an old and abandoned franchise.

The base game is just perfect in itself, no need for more.

This is the best Danmaku Shmup I can recommend to newcomers, it's beautiful, hard but not unfair, and has quite a lot of stages. There is no spellcard bonuses like the first FDF though, but overall I think it's a much better game so in the end it's a win.

A great horror walking sim, the game isn't particularly exceptional but I'm still recommending it because it has really outstanding assets quality, texture work is among one of the best in the industry and puts to shame many AAA productions.

The story is great and well presented, gives a ton of details for the ones who are really seeking for them, but stays minimal for the ones who doesn't care. I personally care and read pretty much everything and it was fascinating.

I hope Observer System Redux will be interesting too!

After forcing myself to finish the game and it's DLCs here is what I think of it, it is actually pretty good, but it has issues, first, the base game, We were expecting 4 open areas one for each season with linear missions to connect them, so that would result in theory in a mission structure like this :

beginning linear - open (spring) - linear - open (summer) - linear - open (fall) - linear - open (winter) - final linear

sadly, instead, we got :

beginning linear - open (spring) - linear - open (summer) - big corridor (fall) - final linear (winter)

so the game is missing several linear missions, and fall has been replaced by a giant corridor instead of an open area (but you can still go back and forth, kinda) but winter is actually not an open map at all and boring AF and shamefully linear with almost nothing to do and the final is ridiculously easy and the final boss is a QTE...

also the game is a bit too heavy in exposition in my opinion (optional and forced), it talks a LOT, I feel like many sections could have easily spoke 4x less with better writing.

but the experience as a whole can still be interesting, and I am willing to change my review to positive if the devs do some serious bug fixing and optimization that the game cruelly needs.

Then we have the DLCs, the two colonels is really bad, almost 100% cutscenes and boring gameplay when you have to burn gross ♥♥♥♥, it becomes repetitive very fast.

However sam' story is actually really good, and in some ways better paced and presented than the original game, with a good balance of open and linear sections, I really enjoyed it and in my opinion it's the best part of the game honestly, feels like last light but with more story and some really cool sections. However it is a DLC so you have to pay extra to get it, so you're missing it if you only bought the base game.

So yeah, fix the optimization and all the very numerous bugs and collision problems and all, and I'll consider switching it to positive.

---------------------------------------- OLD REVIEW ----------------------------------------

Waw, I really wanted to like this game, as a huge Metro fan, but the amount of technical issues (non RTX) I had during my run (that I couldn't finish) is beyond this world. Corrupted saves, progression lost, my character turning invisible and immune to bullets, crashes, abysmal performance on some sections (below 30 FPS on a 1080 Ti at 1440p, no RTX).

The game was NOT ready for release, and even with patches, is in an unacceptable state.
But even if it was, it would be an average game at best, this game screams console gaming all over the place, textures are incredibly unequal and blurry due to a hardcoded 4 GB of VRAM usage max for the game even in Extreme preset (WTF?), and it really doesn't look good at all, it looks like an Xbox One game and that's because it is. RTX actually doesn't change much, in a lot of instances it actually looks worse and glitchy AF.

The game design is weird, this is not Metro, and it is absolutely not S.T.A.L.K.E.R. either, this actually resembles Far Cry 2, the game design is a bit more interesting, but that's all. Also in my opinion the story and presentation is ridiculous, feels like a poor's man Mad Max.

The level design is atrocious, you get stuck on everything in the environment it is ridiculous. The weapon dirt mechanic is completely over exaggerated (at least in ranger hardcore, that's what I was playing). After a crash that made me loose an hour of progress at the desert map, I gave up. I am not sure I am going to give it a second chance honestly.

You can see the possibility of a good game under all this crap, but the game needed much more time before shipping... To think that they destroyed gaming and annoyed us all with the Epic Games Store fiasco just for this crap of a game? Waw, they sure had some balls.

Finger crossed for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, the real thing (I hope), for some people really upset about my review and who thinks that Metro: Exodus is a masterpiece, well, not it is not and if you don't believe me go download and play for free S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Lost Alpha and you'll understand (it's not on Steam sadly but can be easily found on MODDB for example).

This is a great game, especially since the addition of the alternate story route / branching point from the free DLC that strongly emphasizes on horror.

The game is fun, can be quite scary at times, has great level design, great writing, great characters, the pixel art cutscenes look phenomenal (I wish there were even more of them! But I understand that they may be hard to produce). The story is cool, the sound design and OST are superb (Garoad is a genius).
My only complain is maybe the gameplay, it can feel a bit clunky and unfair at times (please add diagonal flashlight beam..), but nothing to traumatize people that enjoy survival horror games in general.

I am quite a difficult person when it comes to survival horror, and despite it's simple appearance, don't be fooled, Yuppie Psycho is one of the best horror / adventure game in the indie space in a long time.

Well, I'm putting a negative on this one, the game is not bad, but as a huge fan of Frictional Games' works since the Penumbra series this time I'd like to ring the "careful not to stray" bell in the hope that they will notice it.

I didn't have a great time with Amnesia: Rebirth, not a terrible time thankfully, but still, not the best of times, and I'd like to express why, as I replayed The Dark Descent and SOMA very recently before.

First I'd like to talk about the positives, the environments are absolutely stunning, if there is something to keep in the game without any doubts, it's the art direction. Despite a very limited technical aspect by today standards, the environments are incredible, texturing is wonderful with heavy use of clever parallax mapping, and while the texture resolution in general can feel limited, it is one the best examples of texture resolution doesn't matter for a game to look great. The use of dynamic lighting is generous too and makes the environments pop and feel alive (or dead but in a striking way if you prefer haha).

Sadly, as far as I'm concerned, I think it is where the positives ends, the story is interesting, but takes a while to pick up, and most importantly, is horribly told.
You are bombarded with flashbacks and an incredible amount of notes to read, and 80% of those notes are not interesting at all and feels like padding and time consuming for nothing honestly.
Amnesia TDD did a much better job at this because it was a game about immersion and gameplay/atmosphere first and story second, so there was just the right amount of lore to keep you interested, and cleverly paced to not overwhelm you.
One can argue that SOMA kind of suffers from the same issue, but SOMA somehow feels more mature in that direction, and I feel that the story is much better presented, and overall much more interesting, but that may just be me being a huge Cyberpunk themes nerd.

But that's not the main reason of the negative review, the main reason is the gameplay. In 10 years, there has been literally no evolution, and in fact regressions, on the Penumbra/Amnesia formula. The game feels way too easy, scripted, and convoluted. The stealth mechanics and general gameplay systems feel way too simple and outdated, and again, I've replayed TDD and SOMA recently and they are just way more interesting, even SOMA with the absence of inventory screen and mental health asks more things from the player (remember Theta labs?). Also what's with the level design? The "hub" feel is almost completely gone and the game is almost 100% linear now?

TDD was a game about immersion and horror, SOMA was a game about story telling and existential horror, but Rebirth? It feels like the game doesn't know what it is trying to be, and has very serious pacing problems. The ending has some cool moments but it's too little too late, and also too short.

With each game, while Frictional Games' creations still feel interesting to play in a way or an other, it seems that they are slowly fading away from what made them special in the first place. And I'm not necessary talking about "making scary games", but about making games that aims to challenge the player's emotions, in all the good ways the medium is capable of, and not only in the form of interactive linear dramas (thankfully we're not there yet, but we're getting dangerously close).

Be ambitious! not only on the creation itself, but on what it expects from the player! Crazy puzzles! Challenging but readable sections! Challenging level design! All tied with a competent story that keeps us engaged and a focus on immersion, it doesn't need to be the best story ever made!

This is seriously one of the very best Doom/Quake like in existence, visuals are superb especially for a 2004 game, it runs incredibly smooth, the music is great, the game is hard but not unfair.

The gameplay is very interesting, at first it looks like a very boring and repetitive uninspired shooter, but if you're willing to experiment you'll soon understand that there are plenty of combos in weapon usage and player movement, creating a deliciously skilled based shooter, only recently challenged by Doom: Eternal in my opinion. It has a bit undercooked but extremely satisfying black tarot system, where you have to complete a challenge in levels to obtain cards, that will serve as powerful spells later in the more challenging levels.

The gameplay loop, while a bit repetitive, is incredibly addicting, especially if you like pure PC games, the game had an Xbox port much later but oh boy it wasn't designed with a controller in mind!! Even the multiplayer was amazing, but sadly died quickly due to poor support from the developer and horrible netcode, one of my biggest grieves..

Anyways, I'm playing this since 2004 and it's always a blast to come back to it once every 2 years, especially now that I have a 144Hz monitor, you can set a framerate limit with setmaxfps in the game's console, put it at 138 if you have a Gsync monitor and you're good to go! It is essential to limit the framerate because otherwise the game can have some glitches. Oh and also fov to set the fov, pretty straightforward.

However the game doesn't have a story, or it has one but it is extremely serviceable, it's a doom like, don't expect a deep story at all. The levels and atmosphere are both incredible though, especially the latest chapters.

This software is a godsend, especially for a poor person like me who only owns a GTX 1080 Ti (sighs... Nvidia comeon)

Nevertheless, it is a masterpiece. Sadly, Windows 10 windowed mode is the worst thing that happened to mankind (because of the forced triple buffered vsync and the super high input lag), unless you have Variable Refresh Rate to bypass the horrible Desktop Manager Vsync lag. So you will need a Gsync / Gsync compatible monitor to really get the most of this software, if you have though, it is basically perfect.

This is an extremely flawed masterpiece, but a masterpiece nonetheless.

However, to be truly enjoyed, you must meet 2 conditions.

First, you need to have an extremely powerful computer, SSD, RAM, CPU, GPU, monitor (because Gsync/Freesync support is almost mandatory honestly), everything in your computer needs to be top of the line, and even so, you need to not go above high for shadows, and medium for lighting, due to abysmal CPU engine bottlenecks (all the rest can be set to ultra though, except shaders if you plan to play at 1440p).

Second, you need to mod some aspects of the game, to bypass some annoying game design decisions (remove bush collisions for example, and master strikes)

If you feel ready and meet the requirements, go in! Best game in the last decade in my honest opinion!

It was a cool experience (aside from Origin creating softlocks with msi afterburner... whatever) but I don't recommend it. The game is by far the lesser entry in the Crysis franchise, 1 and 2 (no matter which one you prefer) were much better games.

This one feels a bit shallow and suffers heavily from being a product of the xbox 360 era, you can feel they tried their best, but the level design is extremely constrained and insultingly full of invisible walls.

I did my playthrough in maximum difficulty (post human warrior) and the game is MUCH easier than Crysis 1 or 2 in their respective difficulties. Cloak is kind of weak, but oh boy Armor is OP. It is so OP I can't think how easy it is in easier difficulties. If you die it is basically only because you forgot to activate Armor mode, or that you need to improve your efficiency at energy management.

It's not the worst game in the world, but it feels so shallow, it sadly doesn't have much going for it, even it's graphics feels a bit... weird and unequal, most of the time it's quite good, but other times it looks.. weird and dated even for it's time. For example the animated vegetation is hardcoded at 30 FPS and it looks very stuttery, and water reflections are very ugly SSR mixed with low quality cubemaps. The game feels like a console game with a super HD enhance pack slapped over it but not a true PC game, if that makes sense.

Also for some reason this game is super dark, had to put my brightness (ingame and monitor) to 100 and it was still dark ! This makes things really hard to see at times and can cause a bit of a headache.