Recent reviews by Joscco

This is a very relaxing and beautiful game. It has solid visuals, a great soundtrack and interesting areas to explore. The only drawback I have is that it's a short game, but I still highly recommend it as it's well worth the playthrough.

This is an excellent open world action adventure game with a smooth and responsive combat system.

The visuals in this game are very solid, but the Uruk are what really stand out, and they did an outstanding job with all of the detail, especially in the facial animations. The world feels slightly barren at times, and there isn't a whole lot to look at in amazement, but then again it is a war-torn world which they did a good job at creating. There are two zones in the game, with the first being more barren and gloomy than the second zone you enter, which actually has a lot more plants, grass, and of course more Caragors.

The one thing that stands out the most in this game, is obviously the combat. It's basically a hybrid between the Batman: Arkham series, and Assassin's Creed. It's very responsive, and you have a few abilities that you're able to use. You have a main attack, a stun, a dodge and you can also slow down time while using your bow to pull off a couple easy headshots which can thin out the Uruk's. You can also counter-attack, which is extremely important while fighting large groups and helps significantly. There are also times when you can use your dagger to silently take out enemies from behind, or you can sneak behind them and brutalize them which can scare off 1-2 Uruk's which is always funny.

The rune system is also a great addition. Being able to add specific benefits to your sword, bow and dagger can give you offensive, defensive and just overall improvements to your character which you'll definitely need when fighting more powerful enemies. You also get a type of currency that's earned when completing side missions which you can use to upgrade characters health, how many arrows you can carry etc.

There's also a system called Power, that you can earn by doing the missions where you're sent to kill a specific Uruk, usually a captain. After getting enough Power, you can choose an ability to unlock, which is basically like a talent tree system that unlocks new abilities as you get further down the tier which give you some of the most powerful abilities in the game. Since you'll be killing massive amounts of Uruk's, you should have no shortage of Power. Also, expect to die, at least earlier on in the game. If you get overwhelmed, and there's a captain, or sometimes 3 in the mix, things can get bad very quickly. Also rage inducing, but still funny when you're killed and get taunted by said Uruk, and then seeing him get promoted just makes you want revenge all that much more. However, branding Uruk's, which allows you to basically control them allows you to cause a lot of mischief and cause infighting which is always a great advantage to have.

The story in this game is fairly good. I wasn't blown away by it, but it kept my interest. If you find all the collectibles in the game, they add more lore to check out. The main characters are pretty decent, but I though they could've been fleshed out a little more. I did find the only Dwarf character Torvin to be funny though, but it seems like they always are in most games.

Overall, if you're into this style of game I highly recommend it. It incorporates straight up combat, mixed with stealth elements very well.

Shank 2 is a great sequel and in my opinion, better than the first game in basically every way.

The visuals are definitely an improvement over the first game, and one of the very first things I noticed was the larger variety in locations you visited. The first game suffered a bit from repetitive areas that didn't change very much, but in 2 you're always fighting in a different area from level to level which is a nice addition.

Another improvement is the weapon variety. You still have the signature weapons Shank uses in the first game, but there is a lot more to choose from this time around, and also you're able to pick up quite a few weapons that the enemies drop for a limited amount of uses until they break and they usually do fairly good damage. You can also change weapon loadouts in the middle of playing which is extremely useful, especially when you're on a boss fight and you don't have the optimal weapons equipped to do the most amount of damage.

Everything else in the game is quite similar with not much change. There are quite a few boss fights which are all fun and some are fairly challenging, especially when other enemies come out to join the fight. My only complaint of the game would probably be the length. It seems to be shorter than the first game, but it could be because I didn't die as often as I did in the first game. It's an action packed few hours, but it's a minor gripe. I didn't get to the play the multiplayer section of the game, but it would definitely add more replay value to make up for the shorter single player campaign.

Overall, definitely worth the money if you're into the genre.

Solid 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up game. Solid visuals for the style of game, but the best part of the game is definitely the combat. It's mainly a hack n slash with melee, ranged and acrobatic type attacks. You basically have a fast attack, slower heavier attack and a ranged attack and you can weave them all together for better combos. The combat is mainly very fluid and responsive majority of the time, but occasionally I've noticed it not respond properly to my attacks or dodges, but it doesn't happen all that frequently.

There's a few cutscenes as well to explain the story, but it's not super in depth as you'd expect, but obviously this game is more about the combat than anything else. I've seen other people claim the game is too short, and while I agree, I believe it has a solid length for the genre and especially the price.

Overall a very solid title if you're into beat 'em ups!

A fun action adventure game with a few puzzle elements. The game has a cool art style with hand drawn environments in a 2D world. The levels themselves are fairly large, but have multiple sections in them usually containing puzzles that then allow you to progress to the next sections of the level. Each level takes around 30 minutes to an hour to complete which works well and the levels flow nicely.

The best thing about the game is definitely the music and how it syncs to the gameplay, and how everything just moves together. You can definitely tell how they really wanted to integrate rhythm based gameplay into the game and it works well.

In most of the game, you'll play as Beatbuddy himself, opening up paths to progress and also solving various puzzles that usually require you moving a device to another area to open doors and so on. But in other parts, you'll be in a vehicle with a companion doing the same thing which keeps the gameplay fresh.

The only downside I found, was sometimes the movements can be a little clunky and frustrating but that's mainly in the vehicle parts and not so much when you're just controlling Beatbuddy himself. This viewpoint is only from playing with the controller however, so I'm not sure if the mouse and keyboard gameplay is any different or better.

Overall, the game is definitely worth a playthrough.

This game is a very satisfying 2D sidescrolling ARPG. The fact that one guy created almost everything in this game by himself is really impressive. For a $15 game, people should have no issues getting at least 10-20 hours of gameplay. This game has a great and unique art style, which is one of its strong points. The combat plays extremely well, and I ran into no issues using the mouse and keyboard. Some fights can be a little easy by spamming the parry ability, but the combat still requires you to dodge, and use your companions abilities to take on larger groups of enemies.

The voice acting was off in a few parts, and done really well in others but nothing that affects the quality of the game. There is a system where you can collect materials and a blueprint, and take them to the Blacksmith to be crafted which is cool, but I didn't take too much advantage of it.

There are a lot of side missions, which helps flesh out the story/game, but I found the quest log a little weak and thought it could've been more descriptive. Each time you level you're able to put a point into your attack, defense, max health or your companion which helps her abilities be stronger. It's an easy system and works well.

Overall, highly recommended game that has a lot of exploration and content.

This game is a superior sequel to Torchlight. Some improvements are the graphics, which have been touched up quite a bit, multiple towns to stop at to sell/buy and grab quests, and a long and more diverse campaign.

There are new classes in this game such as the Engineer, Outlander, Beserker and Embermage. The same style returns in terms of ranged and melee classes. A larger selection of pets return this time, but this time around you can give them a list of items to buy when they get to town instead of you having to go and buy potions and so on so a lot of the time you don't really ever have to leave a dungeon.

They also incorporated multiplayer, and a bunch of mods that add more depth and life to the game. Highly recommended if you liked the original or dungeon crawlers in general.

Very fun side scrolling platformer with a new and improved graphic style. It's a big improvement compared to the first game in terms of graphics, music, fluidity of platforming and more balanced difficulty.

The game generally gets harder as you play, which helps you get used to the new mechanics a lot easier. There is also incentive to replay levels to get keys, chests, and retro levels that you may have missed. There are also multiple unlockable characters that you can get, which also have their own multitude of costumes.

An addicting, fun game and definitely worth the price!

All around solid FPS game. This game has a ton of exploration and side missions to keep you very busy. The main story is decent length as well, but coupled with side missions and and certain collectables you could easily be busy past the 20-30 hour mark.

The visuals are probably one of the strongest things driving this game. The world is very detailed, and it looks and actually feels like a real island in the middle of the ocean. The character models are solid, but the environment is where this game really shines. There are a lot of weapons to use and the most fun is probably the bow along with doing takedowns with your machete. Aside from the main story, you can do missions like hunting certain animals, killing a certain pirate and driving medical supplies from point A to point B.

The voice acting was decent, but the pirate Vaas easily takes the crown in that department. I think Ubisoft did a great job with this game and I highly recommend it.

Awesome sequel to the first game and better in all aspects, especially the graphics. They took what was visually appealing about the first game, and enhanced it big time. There are a few more puzzles here, but quite a few of them are more platforming type puzzles that you'll be needing the Wizard for quite a bit. There are more secret areas to get to, and more difficult enemies and the introduction of a few boss fights which were solid.

The story was a lot more fleshed out in terms of what you were actually trying to accomplish in each level, and you get introduced to an antagonist a little ways in. Overall, Trine 2 improves on everything the first game did great and does it a lot better, and there is great eye candy all the way through.