Recent reviews by bohoa

The best platform fighter on PC. Hands down.

I was a day one purchase of the original Rivals of Aether back in 2015. The game brought something new to the platform fighter genre and I am stoked to say this game is more than a worthy successor, introducing new to the genre mechanics, polishing up and refining the cast, movement, netcode, ui... you name it.

Jumping in early is a great way to play other beginners. There's guides and info on discord and youtube for your characters and questions about how this differs from other platform fighters.

The upgrade to 3d was an overwhelming success imo. The 2d sprites of the og roa are perfectly realized here in 3d. Unlimited framerates and a good amount of graphics options will help this game feel perfect on most gaming setups. The animations are refined from the og game making the whole experience visually look like the evolution we all hoped it would be.

The added gameplay elements really help set the game apart from it's predecessor and other platform fighters. The shield and dodge roll work similar to ultimate. There is a distinct parry button which makes it committal, risk and reward. Ledge play, from grabbing, hogging, great off stage mobility, and ledge specials add depth and make this game more beginner friendly than the first game imo. The addition and rework of some of the casts arsenal adds novelty to the characters and fits well with all of the other changes from the first one.

Thanks Dan and the rest of the wonderful people involved in making this a reality.

Amazing value for 20$, seriously.
Playing on a g29 wheel with a shifter and handbrake. Triplewide @ 5856x1080 @ 120hz

Positives
+ All of the car models are accurate, interiors are very immersive in cockpit view

+ Sounds are great in the cockpit cam

+ Physics are bordering on simulation style, very little arcadey-ness or jank in the physics. Seriously, just tune a car to the specs of a car in your other favorite sim, you might be surprised! Feels realistic and responds as one would expect. Crashes feel violent. Grass and offroad driving is slippery and punishing. Left foot braking, trail braking, rotation through weight transfer, it's all there and behaves more sim, especially with a proper car and setup.

+ Starter cars are stock used cars and need a lot of love in upgrades and parts to make them really shine.

+ The GRIND? Well it makes me value my car and makes each upgrade have weight and purpose. I think the grind actually captures that ol' EA quote, "The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes." But for cars. And you know what? I do feel a sense of pride and accomplishment, and I didn't have to buy it. I just had fun playing.

+ Different builds. I am rocking an Impreza tarmac rally spec, tuned to almost match rsfrbr default tarmac setup, and ohhhh is it fun. Quick and maneuverable.

+ Presets for traffic congestion. On high setting, you will be faced with rush hour traffic, making for some really satisfying 'no hesi' style bombs.

+ Graphics are immersive

+ The world/map is huge with a ton of different circumstances. The mountains to the west provide some of the best roads imo.

+ Good soundtrack, needs more songs though

Negatives
- The initial reviews and community displeasure led to a toxic launch
- Non-club race (sprint, drift, and delivery) rewards seem just a touch low for the money we are moving around
- Need reshade 'perfect perspective' filter for less warping on the side monitors of a triple screen setup
- No cockpit seating adjustments
- Anti-aliasing options leave me wanting DLSS or something. TAA at default is grainy and ghosty, SMAA is jaggy in motion, FXAA is better than SMAA in motion, but still bad. Nvidia control panel cannot force AA options in a lot of Unity games.

Additional Note: Tuning is FREE, after you fully upgrade the part you want to tune:
Unlock new part (free) --> Buy it (credits and/or silver)--> Upgrade it's tuning potential (and applies new value) (credits and/or silver) --> Endlessly tune in the unlocked value range (free). Tuning doesn't cost money, only unlocking a part and it's potential cost something.

A beautiful game visually, functionally, and mechanically.

The visuals are vivid and very active. The tutorial shows you the basics of the visual elements of the game and how that pertains to gameplay.

The premise is to amass a high score by eliminating insects and bosses. As you progress, you get upgrades to either your flower or wasp. The game has a great pace, difficulty curve, and very high skill ceiling. The closest game I have played to this would be Geometry Wars 2/3, not a great comparison imo, but has a distinct similarity to me, but NIDUS is much more engaging and complex on all fronts.

The mechanics are really the treat imo. The dual control system of moving and attacking with the wasp combined with moving, evading, and marking as the flower is a new type of mental faculty the game is demanding from the player. Similar to how drummers can split their pace and control throughout their body, you must split your mind into flower control and wasp control. It is a wonderfully engaging task that may be extremely difficult at the first time playing. Stick with it for a few sessions, maybe around 1- 1.5 hours, things really clicked into a "oh, now I know what I am doing".

I recommend you join the discord and watch some clips/vids of the best.

Great game. Highly recommended

Awesome addition that provides a lot more insight into the game's lore and artistic vision.

Some of the concept art hints at other ideas that may have been a consideration for set and setting, really cool to see where it ended compared to where it possibly started.

Many large finished paintings of characters and world art.

Artbook is a ~80 MB PDF file found in your game files folder (Game Settings --> Browse Local Files --> Ultros Artbook folder)

My favorite metroid-vania to date.

Heavy on the psychedelic themes of healing, reincarnation, peace with nature and ourselves. No other game hits like Ultros does. The story, presentation, game mechanics all pay homage to the difficulties and epiphanies of heavy psychedelic experiences.

The complexity and pace of the game can be something that puts people off, but let me try to convince you that the discovery and the piecing together of the story and mechanics over multiple reincarnations is all part of the experience. Explore, understand, read deeper into the lore, learn about your agency and purpose, as it is a beautiful story that can be grouped into books like trilogy starting with "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge" by Carlos Castaneda. Other shamanic themes are present as well.

Combat is fun and dynamic. You get to unlock, and later perma unlock character upgrades that enhance combat.

Multiple endings are possible and able to be completed on 1 save file.

Ultros might be one of the best speed running games possible. Tons of theory crafting potential for plants, encounters, endings....

I thoroughly enjoyed my first playthrough. Spent a good 10 hours just growing plants and trying to experiment with the mechanics. The lovely music and atmosphere make the game a joy to explore.

If you are looking for an experience that takes psychedelic themes and makes them into a gameplay loop, this is going to be one of the best experiences you can get in video game form.

10/10

Edited July 18th 2024: A mandatory update that forces the install of a widely end user untested kernel level anti-cheat changes the terms of service. This was done months after release and even blocked users who played on the Steam Deck. An egregious abuse of trust. I shall be boycotting EA and CM indefinitely.

Edited June-17-2024: Unfortunately CM and EA have dropped the ball and it does not look like performance, triple screen support, or more realistic physics will be a feature of the EA WRC games.

Performance is very spotty still with stutters on all stages. Frame times are erratic on all presets.

Triple screen support, which was incorrectly defined by CM marketing (literally confused ultra wide with triples), never came or has been mentioned since.

Instead of using real world telemetry to design their physics, CM opts for making their own physics, completely removed from reality. This game will make you a worse sim driver.

Exploits are the name of the game and CM has to manually fix cuts, because using real world rules for cutting made casual players frustrated. So instead of teaching them the rules of rally, we get an arcade exploit fest, ruining the experience for all players. But it doesn't matter too much, because the physics are so far removed from reality that it's not even worth putting time into.

Lastly, esports - This was promised to arrive shortly after launch. Though, it is easy to imagine the issues plaguing the game make esports more difficult. Just for a comparison... KT Racing WRC games had a whole partnership through their comp scene to get real rally drivers out of it. Scope the official WRC (not the game) youtube channel and see for yourself. They used the KT games for training and qualifying. Imagine doing that with CM's physics and exploits...

Old review:
222 hours played. 693 times launching the game... All in an attempt to get this to run at a smooth 60fps and an acceptable visual fidelity on my setup.

Specs:
CPU- 3700x @4.2GHz
GPU- RTX 2080s w/slight mem boost via Nvidia Performance Overlay auto-tuning
RAM- 64GB @3600MHz
Monitors- 3x - 24.5in, 1080p, 144Hz, GSYNC enabled, Game locked to 60fps via nvidia control panel.

Due to performance issues and bugs, I regret not being able recommend EA Sports WRC at this time. E-Rallying is fun, and this game really does a good job of immersing you into the role, until it doesn't because of bugs or stutters. I do hope to revisit this review come the "hotfix patch" slated for mid-January.

Like most racing games marketed for a more broad user base, EA WRC encourages and rewards going fast above driving with precision and caring for the car. There is no real punishment for hitting a curb at 200km/hr or rolling your car 5 times. I find this encourages behavior that is a detriment to more focused racing simulations. Combined with the more casual approach to vehicle physics (not simulating each part of the vehicle and occupants independently, too high grip levels, no realistic downsides to unrealistic setups), unfortunately, this means that practicing this game will probably make you worse at other racing games/sims.

The game is fun and immersive, but the overwhelming majority of my time has been frustration. If you do have the game and need some config edits for performance and/or triple screens, I made some guides based on my experimentation. May you have more fun than I did :D

Great animation software. Absolutely my go to for a quick turn around for animations.

Wonderful ease of use
Great for making animated emotes
Extensive export format support
Node system allows accessibility to more advanced effects
3d model and lighting support
Fluids and particles
Has received a ton of updates making a great software even better

Absolutely recommended! A lot of content, challenges, season, career, online, livery editing. Honestly blown away with the amount of content and how good the driving experience is.

Most of the negative reviews come down to improper game settings and user configs. For a sim racing game, you would think that wouldn't be the case, as all the racing sims need some sort of user configuration to get the most out of them.

For some comparisons based on experience and opinion of realism - Being honest in my experience, Rallysimfans RBR is the best sim rally game, BeamNG is great but without organized rally content, and WRC Generations is close behind.

Handling and FFB are great, car/tire/ground physics are accurate and more punishing than other simcades. The throttle issue that has been discussed a ton here and in the discussions is a non-issue, the pedal axis value accurately maps to engine rpm, so if you hold it at 50% you will only get to 50% of max rpms, as opposed to slowly building up,ultimately this gives the driver more control. Any framerate hitches and massive lag spikes in the physics sim (almost like the camera just skips some updates) can be solved with some UserSettings config adjustments, a lot of the more performance heavy settings are hidden from in-game menus.

All in all, I am very pleased with the game and experience. Great variety in stages and difficulty. It took some setup time, but my overall experience is much more vibrant and rewarding than DR2.0.

Great app, Does exactly what it's advertised to do. Honestly though, day-to-day usage so much more epic than the trailer makes it out to be. Pin to taskbar and launch without Steam!

Watching videos or streams of this game can be hard, but once you get it into your hands and learn the basics, it is wildly fun and entertaining. A masterpiece in visual, sound, and game design. Don't pass this one up.