Recent reviews by Holderist

Pretty fun game with friends. Combat can get interesting and challenging with the various bosses. Overall good, but no urge to replay it after completing one campaign.

Only a few hours in. I have to say, so far a massive improvement on Inquisition. Art style and sound pops more. There's no infinite wandering in the Hinterlands purgatory, just straight into the action and you get a sense of the Final Quest. The game and art all looks sharp.

I kind of wish they had more of a DA and DA2 introduction where you get a bit more of a personal feel to your character. Here you're just Rook, and maybe not a nobody? It's kind of unclear why Varris is like "this is the person we need" or how you meet. Spoiler alert for the first 30 seconds of the game, this all just happens. Maybe it'll be revealed later in flashbacks? Who knows!

Dialogue is quick and witty, and so far the voice acting has been (for the main cast) good.

Combat is a vast improvement over DAI which often felt clumsy. If I had to give it a Bioware feel, I would say it lands between DA2 and ME: Andromeda with quick selection of abilities, some auto-locking aiming - which I constantly forget I need to actually aim some abilities but not others.

Sound so far has stood out to me more, the ambient noises in different locales has improved the 'living' of the places. Again, tried to replay Inquisition recently and that was something missing from that game which had long lapses of just dead silence except for footsteps.

Character creation has a ton of options, I just wish the look of Qunari didn't feel so off-putting. They're basically big, ugly tieflings.

Such a beautiful game. The visuals, the music, environments, characters, story, the FEELINGS. But very much the music hooks you in to moments that are normal and moments that feel like the the end of the world - this is something not many games can do.

It's been a few years since I played Life Is Strange, and I don't know why I waited so long to play this one. The game is beautiful, with a heartfelt, layered story of growth, loss, and all the feels. Voice acting is phenomenal. It also can't be said that the team somehow picks great music accompaniment to the game, this is going to be another soundtrack that I'm going to listen for years to come.

After a 100 years I am given the opportunity to help my planet Super Earth, the only true democracy in the galaxy, to fight for freedom, liberty, and dreams. My favourite part of the fight for freedom is the true camaraderie I have with friends who are great citizens. Together we deliver liberty to planets from the oppressive bugs and robots. Let me tell you, freedom looks great, whether being delivered through heavy ordinance, drones, or at the end of a shoulder mounted autocannon. It sounds great, I can feel the thunderous applause of cluster munitions bringing democracy to all the bug parts.

Enlist now as a Helldiver!

Not sure how many episodes I have left, but the game's narrative builds up, you reveal more about the story, the characters, and people you meet on your journeys. That's journeys plural, because you play as different people, though how different they are is up to you. How they can affect change is up to you. Every choice could make a small difference, added up - who knows? (I don't, I'm still playing through but felt I needed to get these thoughts done)

Enjoying the visuals, they aren't quite as crisp as Life is Strange or later Telltale games, so there's a number of lower quality textures, but it's a similar visual style that you can easily see and navigate through the world, while enjoying the rich colour palette and atmosphere.

Audio wise, the voice acting has been pretty good, and atmospheric sounds are too - especially in key scenes. There's some clear quality differences in some of the recorded lines, seeing as how the game was released in '21 I can only assume some of the actors were still recording from home, or on different days. After listening to some interviews of VAs I actually found it more interesting from a technical and professional perspective to hear the differences, and it didn't bother me - but it might bug some audiophiles out there.

Gameplay, there is not much to say. There are choices, and puzzles along the way. If you enjoy Telltale or Dontnod games then you'll enjoy Road 96.

Only played a couple hours so far co-op with my friend. Game looks and sounds great, love the art and sound direction. Guns so far feel good.
Still learning the optimal strategies and such, but like the previous Dungeon of the Endless it's a challenging game I think, in a good way. Which is good.
One of my top complaints would have been that progression is not shared in co-op, but the devs addressed that this morning they're changing that. There's also a bug with achievements not being shared with non-host players.
Performance is excellent on my machine which I would say is mid tier at the moment, and running everything on high at 1440p. There have been a few CTDs, but they didn't affect our game progress as save states happen often enough automatically.

Verily recommend if you're looking for a fun co-op game with friends. Wait a couple weeks maybe for co-op progression to be fixed (it wasn't specifically mentioned that unlocks would occur retroactively).

Edit: after finishing the game with my friend the difficulty curve is not as difficult once you get some basic understanding of the stats and mechanics. That said at that point you realise there aren't as many options as initially viewed, and most changes are virtually cosmetic. Unless you're a completionist there doesn't seem to be much replayability - my friend gave up after one finished run, I tried a few more runs solo to unlock things. Still keeping this on recommended as the game is still not that expensive, especially on sale so you'll get your time-fun-value on it.

Excellent recreation of the board game, and automates all the busy work, setup, and space needed of the physical game. Now nobody needs to host in their homes and own giant tables/counters. Cross-play was recently added and has made it possible to play with console friends who have different schedules. A+

Had a few sync issues in our first mission together, but thankfully the game is very good at saving states at each round so we didn't lose progress.

Baldur's Gate 3 takes the fantastic sandbox gameplay from Divinity Original Sin, puts a layer of D&D 5e on it, and then amplifies the story, characters, everything by a magnitude.

It's feels like a century since I played the original Baldur's Gates games that I don't remember much, and coming from that it really doesn't matter if you have or haven't. Get ready to meet a huge variety of characters, so many voices, expressions, goals, fears, delights - it feels at times like there's a DM behind the scenes being like "oh yeah, the NPC looks like this, and they have a lilt to their gnomish accent" except you're seeing it. At the time of writing this I've just gotten into Act 2, and the story beats are coming into place with a few twists and surprises. I'm waiting to see how my decisions lead to outcomes.

I have played and am playing D&D still, and the Divinity Games so it was easy to get into the game, understand the mechanics, how to do what, what works (more-or-less). If you haven't played either the rulebook is basically free to read at D&D Beyond. You can learn a bit more about the basic lore, classes, races, etc there. But like the previous 2 Divinity games almost everything can be picked up, examined, moved, thrown, and interacted with in some way.

The sound and music has been excellent, though the fantasy orchestral music generally doesn't follow me outside of games it elevates scenes and the tones of what's happening around you. There's little sounds for almost everything, from chairs scraping floors, your tippy taps on different materials (water, stone, wood planks, cobblestones), water drops, acid splashes it's all well done, and echoes in cavernous spaces, etc.

Visually impressive, lights, reflections off water, oil and other surfaces. Faces are incredibly detailed, and the eyes are some of the best I've seen in games (outside of modding). There's a few off textures mostly in stonework or wood beams if you're too close, but that's a common thing in games. Spells and explosions are fantastical, and you can start to recognise the effects of lasting spells.

Throughout all this my performance has been excellent on high settings, over 60fps with no stutter so far (though I hear that can change in Act 3) on my machine. I've encountered very few bugs, and no crashes. The only notable bug I've encountered is if you try to change the reaction skills settings (eg changing Attack of Opportunity to ask before using it) and then switch to another character's reaction screen it closes the character window. It also didn't seem to save my reaction skill settings after I shut down the game and reloaded the next day.

Edit: After finishing the game, and now playing a playthrough with a friend I can say there is countless entertainment to be had with friends. Hijinks, strategy, and fun for the whole party.

Overall excellence. There are few games like this, as is oft repeated.

Played Valheim on early access release with a bunch of friends, and had a blast. Now, two years later, I'm playing a new game with my Xbox friends thanks to the release there and cross-platform compatibility. Enough time has passed that I get to rediscover things anew, and I know there's more even newer adventures that await from the many releases in between.

There's so much to explore, see, and interact with in this world. You really can't say no at the price point, just have to experience it.