Recent reviews by Loki

10/10 Console port:
Smooth as a butter. Zero crashes from start to finish. All that despite the fact shader compilation is done on the fly. Meanwhile, I encountered over 20 crashes in Part I.

10/10 Performance:
Required specifications seem to be intentionally higher, I was able to max out the game with RX 6800 and Ryzen 5 7600.

10/10 Graphics:
Terrific lighting adds immersion to the game and deepens the already high graphical fidelity, skin looks like real skin, eyes seem real as well. Facial animations have emotions behind them. Textures are tremendous. Repetitive interiors and items within are a minus, but those are there for optimization's sake.

10/10 Gameplay:
The new animation system greatly expands upon Part I's stiff "carpenter in his 50s" gameplay. The visceral audio and gore it adds scratches that primal itch we have for violence. AI becomes increasingly smarter as you increase the difficulty, and can invoke in you flight instincts like no other game out there bar Alien Isolation.

9/10 Level design:
From Jackson to Seattle to the subway levels, Haven, the forest and overgrown levels all lit up in different ways offer a wide variety of gameplay flavors but also serve as an eye candy. This has been done by a team with love for their craft.

8/10 Story:
I really enjoyed the story of Part 2. It depicts the seemingly unstoppable momentum of revenge. But, there are several major issues I found with it:

1. The story pacing is erratic. Creators did everything right when it comes to laying it out for gameplay's and story's sake. The emotional delivery and the message the story was supposed to tell wouldn't have had such an impact if the pacing had not been done this way. Regardless, it can become, and to me personally it indeed became irritating, confusing and at some points an unenjoyable drag, despite seeing the merit and goal of it from the beginning.

2. Part 2 is almost completely detached from the first game's overarching theme. Themes of parenthood, faint glimmers of optimism and finding purpose again are replaced with lust for vengeance that brings about grief and a cascade of losses. Humor, tears of sadness and joy are replaced with endless anguish. Druckmann's own experience with his ethnicity and the endless conflicts it finds itself in have left a terrific imprint that would've been amazing to explore in a game. That is, a new game or a story of another character. This was an unfortunate choice.

What I did like is that just like in Part 1, Part 2's story also shows all sides, but it is possibly the only thematic consistency I found across the two games.

As an art form on its own, this is a 10/10 just like the predecessor.
As a Last of Us game, this is a 10/10.
As a Last of Us story about Ellie, taking into consideration what happened in the previous installment, and what the director wanted to achieve, this is an 8.5/10.

I remember downloading an entire 'no commentary walkthrough' back in 2013 because I never owned a PS and really loved what I saw on YouTube, so I watched it offline like TV series... I can't believe that 12 years later, I laid my hands on this game, and the fact I just finished it is even more unbelievable.

This game is an ode to loss, parenthood, selfishness and the overly frequent masculine urge to suppress one's own feelings in order to power through hardship, even if it means abandoning humanity, evading even the slightest hint of forming new relationships due to the inevitability of loss, or tunnel visioning in order to commit oneself to a selfish act that essentially dooms everyone but yourself and the one you care for.

The Last of Us was one of the first ever examples that proved games can become art. The pacing, story structure, plots, characters, dialogues, audio, visuals, gameplay, the game does what it sets out to do and cranks it to eleven. This game proves that Naughty Dog is one of the most talented game dev teams.

Regarding 'woke' complaints that are usually directed at the second part - I am not a fan of forcing concepts down people's throats myself, but this game and the next were always used as a medium to show other people's perspectives. Always. Every character had their own motivation and backstory. Everyone with differing opinions always had a say in the story, and not one gave the other side a choice. At the end of the day, metal either flung or swung won the argument. Both in this installment and the next one.

Long and hard have I searched for a budget-friendly CBT experience, no more.

I keep playing Slavs because I love fighting endless Hunnic stacks that could've been looting ERE or WRE instead, Sassanids and their puppets in the Eastern wasteland whose cities are an entire map away who declared war on me because why the hell not, Germanic dumbasses to the West that come in after I barely fight off the Huns, and the ERE to the South with their mfing crossbows, deployable defensives and armored cavalry, if they do survive... all that with debuffs to the player because why not

+ great atmosphere
+ battle AI is alright, except for the part where they rush their general into a certain death
+ plentiful mods

- siege AI is broken in every TW game iteration, Attila is no different
- assigning characters to roles within the government is a hassle
- barbarians are bland and alike, Slavs are barely different and use the same skins
- bad campaign AI, reliant on cheating
- diplomacy is lacking
- DLCs
- Creative Assembly

despite its issues, this is the best TW out there, but the sea of DLCs are crazy, CA are not only awful developers, they're also money-grubbers and it shows, releasing countless DLCs that should've been in the base game already... don't buy the DLCs and save this niche, burn this brutalistic uninspired house down so that a pretty little flower can bloom in its place, let them go bankrupt

WE ARE THE SCOURGE OF THEIR GOD

Played 1 map, didn't feel like wasting more time to be honest, I was ready to pour in days of gameplay

Love:

- the graphics on Epic
- animations when going prone, it feels actually great
- Erika as a victory song
- pink mists and gibs
- mortars and other sound effects + visual effects, they're great

Hate:
- absence of headbobbing when walking or sprinting, while prone has all the headbob in the universe
- UI & UX is atrocious and overly complicated mess
- with a full HD monitor, the map you open will make you feel like you accidentally turned on 4K virtual super resolution
- sounds, gunplay, animations
- the graphics on lower than Epic
- the aliasing is atrocious, Squad is suffering from the same UE4 cancer

the game feels like it had talented artists here and there, while falling flat on its face in most other areas... shame, I guess I will have to wait for Red Orchestra 3 to scratch that itch

Great sandbox. However, as all Bohemia Interactive games, something that has a huge potential is instead a pile of hot steaming manure.

Not sure where the problem is, but it seems to me they have one of the most untalented engineer team ever among the "borderline AAA" studios. Hope this'll change and they'll finally realize that multithreading exists come Reforger/Arma 4's full release.

It hurts to see how amazing this game could've been had they spent less time thinking that single-core is really enough. The game was also 32-bit only at its release... Mindblowing Czech engineering.

EDIT: Reforger's miles better in performance. Finally a game of the 21st century.

- Awful AWFUL botched up console port. Should be made illegal. Bad FPS drops, input lag, optimization is pi$$ poor.
- Laggy netcode - sometimes you are being shot at by invisible AI or AI seems to be stuck (because it's already dead, killed by your teammates) and you can headshot it for free points. Americans use VOIP the most, otherwise it's not.
- Unskippable cutscenes (probably serve as loading screens)

+ Very fun game and concept overall, wish it was expanded upon and fixed
+ Love Predators & Aliens
+ Great customization, I love ranger hats

An utterly frustrating experience.

Omnipotent AI showcases the developers' lacking skill in creating a proper AI that goes into WARNO as well. Utter lack of innovation. The AI knows where your AA, ATGMs are, and the range covered. It will flank your forces with helis and even tanks, going straight for the jugular.

Maps are too few. Lack of modding a map is pathetic and this issue is present in the latest Eugen Systems games as well.

Sounds are weak, effects are weak.

Gameplay is fun, when it is fun. That is 5% of the game, 95% of it is AI cheating.

Units have to be unlocked.

Missions are near impossible to get through due to constant balancing without campaign taken into account.

Voice acting quality varies wildly, seems way more polished than Tyrants of the Moonsea when it comes to the map.

The beginning is a bit ridiculous - we have no ties to the person that disappears. And even after a dozen of quests finished, we still don't have any reason to feel anything for her, don't force players into that if you intend to have her disappear within the first few seconds of the module.

Dialogue is sometimes lackluster, Intimidation skill seems to be a useless focus and Bluff and Spot checks will work even if your character has them hovering around 1.

I do like how night and day change the towns' atmosphere.

Too many cut-scenes. You buff yourself prior to boss fights, and either are forced to skip the cut-scene or read it and then realize your buffs ran out.

The ending was lackluster as well. No epic fight, just a small band of enemies and then the main antagonist that can be whacked easily with a melee build.

7/10

DLC-sized extension that is worth playing. It has its short-comings and isn't that polished, placement of high-level monsters that can be sometimes frustrating is very wild and inconsistent. The ending was a bit lackluster too, but it was nonetheless nice.

8/10