Recent reviews by Llaerrick

my my play through of the prologue, this looks like a promising game. looking forward to see if that promise is realized in the full game.

despite it's relatively cheap price, i am not a fan of Chimera Squad.

it's a stripped down, dumbed down, almost seemingly made for mobile version of xcom.

don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game per se. it's just not quite x-com as i have come to be accustomed to.

Summary: a generally fun game with good combat, awesome environments, and good maps. at least to me, too bad the loot wasn't more exciting (only cosmetic skins). only real downer, it sucks being space Archie Andrews. Expect about 22 to 25 hours of gameplay unless you are a completionist. I'd say it's a little pricey out of the bag and at full price. wait for sale maybe unless you need your force fix right now.

There's quite a bit to like about this game. Unlike some others, i was not affected by bugs or graphic glitches, most of the time graphics ran well above 80 fps other than some spikes occasionally.

The combat is fun and being able to select difficulties does make the game slightly more accessible. As you progress along the game, you unlock more and more force powers. You are able to unlock skills with xp via a skill tree (semi-RPG like) while some skills are unlocked by the story-line. But there is no need to build or min max because you will eventually get enough xp to unlock everything.

Combat is more Sekiro than Dark Souls. On the hardest difficulty (Grandmaster), difficulty is close to a Souls game: the parrying timing is easier (a lot) even on Grandmaster than a true Souls game, but what makes it actually a little harder than Souls is that you don't upgrade or change equipment (other than unlocking double saber and limited dual wield). in Souls game, while you cannot tweak the difficulty, having better and upgraded armor and weapons make the game progressively easier. In FO, your equipment pretty much stays the same from start to finish, but you do get to increase your health and force power (mana), as well as get more healing stims (estus) which do serve to make the game some what progressively easier.

the detailing, level mapping and maps are generally very good. bordering on gorgeous. this is important because many secrets are locked in the same location which you are expected to return to to unlock chests and secrets after you get certain skills after progressing the main story (eg. wall running, double jump, etc.).

that said, i wish more was done to make looting fun. the enemies do not drop any loot (there is no loot to speak of in this game). chests only unlock cosmetics. and finding "echoes" (data entries/codex) grants you something like exploration xp. the only thing worth the time of re-combing the map to look for are the secrets which unlock boosts to health and force.

biggest gripe: in this day and age of inclusion and diversity, Cal Kestis (the main protagonist - you) could and should have been anybody or any gender. (like DragonAge did at least letting you choose gender). or perhaps they couldn't because or lore/canon? either way, even worse than another white male protagonist it gets old being space Archie Andrews after a while. would have been more fun and immersive if you could have customized the character somewhat (even Witcher let you change hairstyles and facial hair).

oh yes, another terrible thing. the ponchos are fugly as hell.

Thankfully, I've not had some of the problems that others are having with actually running the game. Playing mostly on My Career and other than some very bad choppy frame-rate on some of the cut-scenes (and during some of the half-time/ full-time shows) the game has mostly run fine. Don't get me wrong, there a ton of bugs, but I've been lucky enough not to run into any game-breaking ones yet.

That said, I put in 760+ hours on 2k19, and after only about 20 hours of 2k20, i'm wondering if it's worth putting any more time in.

The MyCareer story is kind of lame. Apparently, you become the Colin Kaepernick of college hoops. Lame as it is, it was also a little too short and a total waste of Idriss Alba's talents.

There are also a ton of changes to systems and my neighborhood. A short tutorial or a write up would have been useful. For eg. how do you gain reputation, changes to the physical stats, etc.

The tweak to player builds is interesting. I would say the jury is out on whether this is a good or bad thing. Same with the badges (swapping out badges at will seems like a cool thing, since there are badges that may be more useful for single player and others which may be more useful if you're playing multi). Except earning them now seems a lot tougher. Also happy not needing to go into the gym after every game to get turbo, that at least is a welcome change.

But the new stat progression system kind of stinks in how you cannot put points into physicals (Speed, Acceleration, Vertical, Stamina). Apparently, these physical stats and kind of tied into the other stats and they increase bit by bit as you increase the other stats. In theory that sounds ok, but this does not translate well into gameplay once your player hits the NBA. In previous games, the first thing I did was to pump all points into the physical stats. If nothing else, it allows your player to be competitive and keep up with the PC players. This time round this is not possible. The system means you generally won't hit your maximum physical stats until you're close to maxing out ALL your other stats (i.e. end-game). It means you'll be slower, weaker and jump lower than most other PC players unless you are close to max stats. That combined with the change to turbo (using it really terribly drains your stamina) means that 1/2 the time PC players are blowing by you. That's crappy when you're a wing and guarding top-stars, who waltz into the paint at will. But the time i wanted to put my fist through the monitor was when i realised that as a SG, i could not outrun a Centre on a fast break. Things like that really affect enjoyment of the game and I cannot help but cynically feel that all these changes are intended to force players to spend $ on VC to max up faster.

There is a new simulation system when you are subbed out. Previously, you just press A till you are subbed in or the game ends. Now, there is a choice to watch the game play on before subbing in - but apparently, quite a few players have complained that this feature is bugged and causes the game to go into slow-mo. I've not encountered this thankfully. But the developer who decided that it should be a good idea (when simulating to sub in) to be forced to watch the last few seconds of every half if you're not subbed in should be shot. After a while, it gets tiresome.

Been reading some other reviews on the changes to MyGM. They sound horrendous. After MyCareer, My GM is usually my next favourite mode. Apparently, MyGM has now become something like a mobile app game ...

tl;dr, i think i hate 2K. 2.

another reviewer said it best, "think mount and blade (very early mount and blade) with guns".

that said, if you're a fan of sand-boxy open-world free-roam fps/rts this game ticks all the boxes.

true enough, graphics are fairly basic and rudimentary even, and yes there are bugs. but i still found it fun and engaging.

am hoping that more depth and content is added. but i guess the devs now are rightfully focusing on stability and mechanics.

but all in all, i would recommend it.

first time player of Valkyria and i must say i do like the game from the 6 or so hours i've put into the game thus far.

port-wise its as good as it gets i think. it runs very well, no problems whatsoever so far and has varied advance graphics options such as uncapped framerate. also keybinding without hassle.

this is a small tactical squad (generally 6-10 friendlies) turn-based combat game with very nice anime graphics. combat is relatively simple but satisfying, using action points to determine movement and with one attack each turn. there is a basic cover mechanic (very basic) and hits are generated based on accuracy stats. there are a few classes which differ in weaponry, armor and role: and these affect movement rates. light armor troops with non-heavy weapons such as scouts and engineers generally have the highest movement rate (scouts by far), shocktroopers (machinegunners) with heavier armor but lighter machineguns have moderate-to-low movement, and the slowest lot either by armor or equipment like the grenadier (more like a portable mortar) and lancer (anti-tank bazooka) and sniper (although wearing light armor).

movement is pretty important in the game as missions revolve around a smallish map (complete with fog of war and lines of sight) and usually involve capturing/holding points. combat is pretty intuitive mostly (but somehow still very fun and satisfying). there's a little frustration with line of sight and aiming view, but that's something you can get used to.

after completing mission, you are ranked on how you perform with a big qualifier being the turns taken to complete the mission. obviously, the lesser the turns taken the higher the rank. that said, initially i was too concerned with getting A ranks for missions (usually requiring you to complete them in about 3 turns). big tip, don't let the A-rank fixation ruin your game play and enjoyment. you can replay each mission (or skirmishes) as many times to farm XP and resources (which are needed to skill up your troops and research/deploy better weapons/equipment) which also makes re-doing those missions and aceing it a lot easier once you do have better skilled troops and equipment. missions are generally challenging without being totally frustating (unless you have that A-rank fixation, then good luck :p)

voice-acting (i'm playing the japanese voice and using english subs) is great. combined with the graphics it's almost like watching a well-produced anime. story-line is fairly standard anime-fare so far but has just the right amounts of grandeur, comic-relief and stereo-types.

would recommend.

[update]

the missions get more difficult as you progress. the story-line is fairly cliched but has very high production value. interesting game play feature is relationships between your squadmates which affect their traits (which gives a buff/debuff depending on parameters) and also allows for additional side stories (and missions) to be unlocked.

urgh. after about 6 hours in, that's about the kindest i can say about this year's 2k MyCareer script.

firstly, my career. the story line this time round is at least somewhat interesting. and with china being such a huge market, it makes good sense to have some 2k setting in china.

so you don't get drafted and end up playing ball in china. it's an interesting shift and having chinese language commentators are quite cool. then the story line gets a bit too smart for its own good. after beating an nba all star team and posterizing fictional player A (your team mate from college and rival from aau days), you get traded to LA. not the Lakers, but the G-League team. and before you play a game, you get traded for ... sandwiches. yup, you get traded for all you can eat tuna, 2-cheese, no-rye sandwitches. so you grind in some back-water mid-west G-League team, aight, dues and all. turns out you are a whiny little b*tch (but not the biggest b*tch on that G-League team) and you go through the whole process of learning "basketball isn't all about numbers and taking the last shot". well, unfortunately, 2k19 plays that way and that bigger b*tch sabotages your career and gets a call up to the nba before you. you are then cut from the team due a firework accident and a motel fire (i sh*t you not - this is for real in the game). some how when everything seems over, suddenly, your rival from the past calls you up and says the Lakers (yes this time for real) need you to play one game for them to help them make the play-offs against that b*tch from your former G-League team ... erm ... ya ... right ...

as ludicrious as the story line got, i started thinking maybe this was some inception like sh*t and i would wake up in game back in china playing ball. but no, sh*t is real. and some how after that one game (Lakers won and made the playoffs but you dont get to play anymore that season - guess it's a 1-day contract). suddenly, now you're hot property ... and every single nba team wants to play you 25 million to sit on their bench. seriously. so, now i'm a 62 rated player for the Boston Celtics maybe 8th or 9th man and pretty much out-earning everyone else on the entire team.

shame really, the story was interesting at bits. and skippable cut-scenes was something that really should have been implemented like 5 years ago. but i think they tried to be smart and too funny, and then just gave up.

[updated gameplay review]

game-wise. some aspects of the game are definitely better.

player defence is more viable, and steal/block mechanics generally improved. there's more contact and game play is more meaty, with more missed passes, handles and contact going after loose balls. AI blocking is improved and it's also harder to get into good positions to pick up offensive rebounds (no more cheesy just standing under hoops for easy offensive rebounds, you generally have to jostle for position).

still not a fan of the screen setting. there's a lag time is applied to the time you press screen and the time it takes to set in the game but this is something you can eventually get used to. but picking the direction of the screen in motion is sometimes a random diceroll, often ending up facing the wrong way.

AI decision and shot-choice is not very good still.

unfortunately, 2k has always struggled with creating apprpriate difficulty without cheesing up the game by literally making user controlled players worse than AI opposition. would really like a harder difficulty mode where difficulty is scaled perhaps marginally with physical stat boosts and perhaps offensive/defensive awareness boosts for opposition team, but without the crushing 40+/50+ stat difference in shooting stats.

HOF difficulty is cheese beyond all cheese to the point where i don't even get frustrated any more and just LOL. the AI opposition players are all literally almost unstoppable to the point where unless you actually block the shot (challenging is generally not enough), it's going in. some would jeer and say, you just suck, etc, L2P. well, on MyCareer mode, you can't switch to challenge every oppo player since you're locked into position so you'll generally watch on as the AI player sinks about 90% of all their shots over your team mates (one twelve minute quarter on HOF was literally: 18/18 FG (100%), 7/7 3PT (100%) for the opposition). in the meanwhile, your team's Kyrie Irving is blowing wide open 3s on multiple occasions, and you miss pretty much all your shots within 2 feet of the basket so long as there is an oppo player within breathing distance.

[updated]

the online issues in this version regarding missing virtual currency (VC) is pretty terrible. i mean VC in this game is everything: you need it to purchase skills and gear, you earn VC from games and some even pay real money for it. so anything which affects the integrity of VC from undelievered VC, missing VC (many players, and this has also happened to me a few times) have logged in to see their VC at -1. that's tantamount to putting money in a bank and then finding out it goes missing or the amount is incorrect (well actually, my RL bank account may occasionally have a -1 value but that's just me). 2k has to sort this out because its becoming really tedious.

wanted desperately to like this game. conceptually interesting: a mix between a shooter, Souls and dungeon-crawling with limited RPG aspects.

unfortunately, it doesn't (or at least hasn't) translated well into play. in fairness, i've only played a little into the game (up to first boss), but what i've seen so far leaves a lot to be desired.

first off, as a shooter, the controls feel sluggish and you do not actually get an intuitive feel for the shooting mechanic. a lot of that can be attributed to the terrible cross-hair design. for a game which boasts of gameplay mechanics which allow you to target critical points and shoot off limbs, it doesn't feel precise enough. even playing as a sniper/marksman with sniper rifle, it's not exactly clear where the aiming point/hit box is and should be.

also, after a while, in a game where bullets are scarce, shooting off limbs is pretty much a waste of bullets because they regenerate in the course of combat! as a sniper, your ammo is very scarce indeed, and some enemies cannot be one shot-ed even if you headshot or weakpoint (back) shot them. so, after accidentally shooting off the arm off a gun-wielding grunt mob (thanks crosshair), i noticed that "hey no gun!", i might be able to use this tactic for hard-to-kill mobs with guns - i.e. i'd shoot off their hand wielding weapon and then switch to melee to finish them off thus saving precious bullets. ingenious. up the point when the gun and arm respawns 1 to 2 seconds in rendering that bullet useless anyway. waste, they could have made that a viable mechanic. but this is a good example of how much potential the game has, and yet doesn't use it properly or ♥♥♥♥♥ it up.

the melee-element of the game is also very basic at least at this point and is limited to button-mashing and dodging. while being able to hack off limbs makes the game sound visceral and meaty, there's no oomph and weight to the melee combat which comes across as almost an after-thought. think melee combat in Counterstrike (except you're limited in stamina) and you won't be far off. zzz. actually, CS:GO melee might be a little bit more invigorating ... at least you don't run out of stamina after 5 seconds.

the AI is both tepid and supernaturally-gifted at spotting you at the same time. pathing leave much to be desired. i've literally seen the AI-mob retracing it's path 10x in a semi-circle trying to walk to where i am (one block of debris in between us).

the boss fight was pretty horrid. it seems to want to follow a Souls-type formula, with bosses hitting hard and following specific fight patterns which you learn to recognize. unfortunately, the sluggish combat and generally off shooting mechanism doesn't translate into anything remotely fun. the fight area is small also (which already kind of breaks the Souls rule that boss areas should generally be big so players can run around and have enough space and time to learn the boss mechanics).

the level design is pretty bad at least for the first level. linear and narrow corridors. its hard to distinguish directions and turns and every other room looks the same. again maybe just the 1st level and the rest of the game may be better later on. also, combat spaces are very tight, which is fine for a melee-oriented close combat game but not for game where main damage output is shooting-based.

the colour and art is bleak and drab. perhaps that is intentional, but it just lacks colour and life and makes everything damn dreary. that combined with the sluggish combat make it almost a chore to play the game.

i'll give it another go. perhaps it's one of those games that gets better (i hope a lot better) as you progress. but right now, it says a lot for the game that less than 1 hour in and i do not feel like playing it anymore. if the 1st level is anything to go by, i do not have a lot of hope.

i'd say for now at least, the number of hours played is as good an indication of how bad i feel this game is for me. i have gone so far as to uninstall it, thinking that it's unlikely i'd ever want to come back to it. maybe someday.

1. the difficulty settings don't appear to have any effect whatsoever in MyCareer. Pro or Hall of Fame it doesn't seem to matter. your team-mates' AI is stuid AF, while the other team effectively has 5 Kawai Leonards. I started out with a terrible team (go Bulls ...) and chalked it down to bad team mates. 2nd season (1st Season ROTY, 19ppg 14rpg) signed on with "champions" (yes, go figure) Rockets, and I'm watching Harden blow open lay-ups and Chris Paul getting stripped and turning over possession about every other possession (he's averaging more than 6 turn-overs a game). in the meantime, for the other teams, every other scrub is a GOAT. watch Demarre Carroll turn in 40 points, DHoward hit all his free throws, opposition team shooting over 55% for 3's and their short barely 6 foot PG out-rebound your team's Centre.

2. the AI GM is so incredibly dense and the trades do NOT make sense at all. with the Bulls, they traded a starting Centre Robin Lopez (old and perhaps not quite a fit for the system) for Nik Stauskas. in itself it was not a bad trade, but it created a friggin log-jam at the SG spot (Wade - pre-trade, Lavine, your imaginary friend Shammy Wells, Justin Holiday, Denzel Valentine ...) then immediately after that, they trade the only other Centre in the team Felicio for some fourth-rate SF (sorry Lance Thomas). with the Rockers, they trade Ryan Anderson (I know bloated contract ...) for Miles Plumlee who became like the 4th Centre in the team (behind Al Jefferson, Koufos and Nene) ... compared to the 2k19 GM AI GarPax appear godly.

3. literally every challenge results in a foul (even if you're in position and not jumping into lanes). on the other end, you're literally man-handled and you'd be lucky to get a call 1 in 5 times. not sure why they put a "take charge" function in game, it's almost literally impossible to pull off. standing literally stationary and having the ball handler run into you results in a blocking call. and you have to challenge because your team mates' defence are beyond terrible and they do not know how to prevent dribble penetration at all. 5/8 times the opposition ball-handler will take the ball into the paint (your team mate is stuck on some screen on the other end of the court) and have a wide-open pull up or floater. the other 2/8 times when you rotate, they stick the jumper/floater in your face anyway (1/8 they pass to some guy - doesn't matter who - who will drain the 3).

4. i really don't like the game flow because you literally have to play hero-ball to win (passing it to your team-mates result in ridiculous decisions, terrible shots or blown lay-ups) .

5. 2k18 has bad math. you receive VC after each game. there is a pop-up showing you how much VC you earn: it's your salary + your team mate's rating + stats - with VC values assigned to each . i started noticing that the VC you "earn" post-game doesn't quite translate to the VC given to your player: eg. in one game i noticed that i earned about 1.2k VC and when this was added to my player (who had about 2.3k VC) i should have ended up with about 3.5k VC, instead, my player only has about 3k VC - where did that missing 500VC go to? initially, i thought this was due to difficulty settings (in previous versions, difficulty settings changed the VC multiplier), so i played on different settings but still noticed that the VC 'earned" was not correctly being added to my player. each game, i'm being short-changed about 300 to 500 VC. pretty damn insidious considering that VC is now premium and they are selling it ...

well, about 12 hours in, i'm still enjoying the game.

it's a-bit like Saint's Row meets Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. set in a familiarish Saint's Row world, Seoul looks superficially good but doesn't actually quite capitavate or capture you. you never quite get the feeling like you're part of this world - just someone passing through.

it plays a lot of Saint's Row (and has the same limitations as Blood Dragon, after a while, you feel like you are doing the same things over and over again). what saves it (for me at least) is the game play mechanic which allows you to switch between 3 characters at the same time, and the various rpg elements.

the main game mechanic revolves around you controlling 3 agents at any one time (except for specific agent missions where you are a specific agent). switching around almost instantly on the fly makes for a lot of mayhem and amazing combos (eg, agent 1 stealths and shoots a trap right into a bunch of enemies, agent 2 swaps in and spams mines at that same group, agent 3 swaps in and chainguns/shotguns/melee the whole lot of them to pieces - all in the space of 6 seconds). the mechanic allows for so much variety and utility and allows you to tackle different encounters differently depending on how you're set up or who you have in your squad.

it's a funnish (although not great) FPS with loads of abilities and effects, with (deliberately?) stilted/cheesy sunday cartoon humour. AI-isn't great but you can make up for it (if you like the challenge) by cranking up the difficulty (there are 15 different difficulty levels to choose from - which correspond with the risk-reward). The game only shines when the difficulty is cranked up to the point where the enemies keep coming!

the rps-like leveling and skills prolong the fun (if this is your kind of thing) and the mechanic where you can switch points out as and when without any penalty makes for a lot of experimentation. the different characters don't really stand out (think generic weekend cartoon hero) in terms of dialogue or character, but they do offer different and myriad playstyles (pretty much every single rpg archtype is here - but that doesn't mean you have to play them that way).

generally, a fun game. had to lower the settings a little but generally runs and had not encountered any game breaking bugs yet.