Recent reviews by TheWeirdSpark

I must honestly say, I am slightly torn on this game. It has many good, if even great aspects (the story being among them) but also some really - in my opinion - bad ones. I found it very difficult to choose a rating for this game (I'd say 3.2/5 stars), but I believe a "thumbs up" is still the right way to go. I'll go into more detail:

First off, the good:

Story wise this game is quite the ride. It is extremely good and farely easy to follow. Pacing is mostly decent (except for the last chapter) and the ending is quite unexpected (definitely play the DLC).

Now for my misgivings:

Firstly, the gameplay. I struggled in many places to have fun playing this game, especially in places that punish you for dying, forcing you to replay a huge section of otherwise menial, easy and/or annoying content (it gets annoying if you do it often enough lol). The placement of checkpoints is fairly rudimentary in my opinion, and not well thought out.

Secondly, (especially compared to the DLC) the HUD system for this game is quite bad and not particularly intuitive.

Thirdly, placement of ammo crates (and similar items) is sometimes out of the way, making not finding them punishing to the player, forcing them to double back just to pick up some ammo they missed, without which they cannot continue. This issue continues with a vast amount of content not being particularly obvious, breaking the immersion the game had created while you try to figure out for an hour what you are supposed to be doing.

Fourthly, the pacing in some chapters just is not ideal. After the story starts picking up towards the end, you get spawned extremely far away from the end on the last chapter, forcing you to walk for what feels like hours, taking all the momentum out of the story. Very sad, in my opinion.

To sum up: Even though I have a lot of annoyances and misgivings about this game, I did find the story it tells worth forcing my way through it. And having played it fully I can say that it is indeed worth a play, as long as you know what you're getting yourself into.

This DLC is a well refined version of the otherwise decent gameplay Alan Wake has to offer. Character movement and fighting is far better and actually extremely fun. There are new and interesting weapons for you to use and the new and improved HUD overlay - including an extremely helpful minimap - is a great addition.

Story wise, it continues after the main game's ending. The pacing of it is far superior to Alan Wake and it feels very rewarding. It is definitely a must play if you want to know more about what happened.

After about 2 years I have now revisited this game and I am having an incredible amount of fun. With the shier deapth the game offers now it is almost inconceivable that this game was ever launched in the state it was in. I give as an example base building. Instead of being immediately thrown into the story and skipping star systems to get to the center or following the path of the atlas (if I am remembering correctly), you are first and foremost, after repairing your ship, asked to start off with the whole basebuilding aspect. Which is a very good decision on Hello Games's in my opinion, because it introduces you to the mechanics of the teleportation system. This way you don't get lost trying to find your way back to your base and after hours of searching notice that there is a teleporter system.

Another thing to note is the tutorial / hint system. Though a bit confusing in the very beginning, it does help allot with getting to know the different mechanics of the game. With it, I only needed one or two quick google searches, primarily because there is no indication on how to switch camera perspective from 3rd to 1st person, which I prefer in this game (by the way you need to press "x" or "d-pad down" then in the popup menu navigate to the settings icon and from there you can switch perspective). This should be better explained as it is probably the first thing people might want to change.

This kind of brings me to my next point. The popup menu is a great tool, once you know it exists. It is incredibly user friendly, to the point and has all necessary information right in front of you on the HUD. It is very easy to navigate this menu once you've familiarized yourself with the controls for it, which are helpfully prominently displayed at the bottom. Once you've taken a look at them, finding the right thing is a matter of seconds.

Which brings me to basebuilding. It is a very good decision to have all the building take place in this little menu. As stated, it is extremely easy to navigate and find things. This is a good system in comparison to, for example, ARK: Survival Evolved where you need to open your inventory, pull the building items into your hotbar, close the inventory, select the item and then be able to place it. In No Man's Sky you need only navigate the menu to the correct item and then place it. No need to craft them as they are crafted when placed down. The resource requirements for placing (/crafting) an item, say a wood floor, are shown on the right side of your HUD. This system completely eliminates useless inventory skipping that makes many other games building mechanics so tedious.

Exploration is a big part of this game. And even if you don't feel like doing it, you will have to at some point. To advance more crafting blueprints for basebuilding you must find certain buried items. They do spawn frequently on planets, however you will need to go at least a little while to reach them. Not only can you then unlock certain blueprints for items used in building, which is not my main point, it also encourages you to wander the planet a little, even though you only wanted to get a blueprint. This part is the most important of the game and I am so happy that Hello Games have managed to get it right. Exploration is exciting, as you fight off sentinals, when you get caught mining or are constantly trying to find resources to refill your oxygen supply and / or hazard protection systems. Inventory management is also a constant fight, similar to Minecraft in a way. With a limited amount of slots in your exosuit and, in the beginning, your ship and very rare exosuit upgrades you can find that unlock one new inventory space you are always trying to manage your inventory in the most efficient way.
Planets are basically littered with abandoned outposts that you can save your game at. Should you die, you respawn there and don't need to walk for miles trying to find your lost loot. And every now and then you'll come by and inhabited facility with a launchpad where, should your ship be repaired and have fuel, you can call it to your location, thus effectively eliminating useless travel time. Keep in mind you do need one "navigation data" to call your ship, still an effective tool though. And though I do not know if exploration becomes tedious as one progresses, I do have a feeling that it will still at least be a decent system for players to engage with. And I hope this game will remain as fun as I progress my savegame.

A true masterpiece. Heavy rain was amazing, Beyond: Two Souls even more so. But this, this is the epic culmination of the Quantic Dream studio. With over 40 different outcomes (just mind boggling to think about that). The soundtrack is one of the best in recent years in my opinion. And the whole game just feels like you are controlling a movie. It's an amazing concept that has just become better over the years.

There are some downsides though. The crashes. I have an i7 7700K @ 4.7GHz and a GTX 1070. This game should not be crashing. I've lost a character because of a crash. Sucks.

This game is a steal if you get it on sale. It's about 4-5 hours long if you attempt to solve every puzzle yourself. But the story is very rewarding. The scenery is quite impressive, always managing to make things look incredibly beautiful. It is a definite recommendation from me!!!

I love this app for its simplicity and it just plain works. Its so worth paying for on steam to support the devs. It literally turns any app you want into fullscreen windowed. Even things like your average chrome or some other app. Would absolutely recommend this to anyone who is annoyed by incompetent game devs.

If you like being killed by ultra sweaty guys or gals, this game is for you...

Amazing game. 100% buy it. The story isnt too great (though i love it cause im a destiny fan). but all in all great game.

It's so old, but the community servers make it fun. It's amazing for casual play when you're bored. Or just want to have some fun.

Incredibly awesome competitive 5v5 online gameplay. The different modes are awesome. Keep in mind: There is a learning curve