Recent reviews by truzen

Is Borderlands 3 a good game? Yes. Then why I am not recommending it? A couple of reasons.

If you're a fan of the Borderlands series, Borderlands 3 feels like a departure, in terms of characters, writing, questing, and some basic QOL.

On the characters front, the new character, Ava, comes off as a whining pre-teen; even series mainstays, like Tiny Tina, feel like caricatures of their previous selves.

The story itself feels disjointed, only barely held together by the in-your-face antagonists, who you would just ignore on any given day in real life, unsubscribing from their YouTube channel and blocking them on Twitter. And speaking of social media, which it seems like game's premise hinges heavily upon, a lot of the jokes and jabs already feel sorely outdated. "Dank memes" anyone?

There were two quests, both in Devil's Razor, that really made me question the overall quality of the game. "The Feeble and the Furious" has you drive around, running errands for a elderly "gentleman" that berates you the whole time; not really my idea of a fun time... The other was "Buff Film Buff", which is a Tommy Wiseau homage/parody, who's lines quickly overstay their welcome; you easily get the joke within three lines, but even after completing his mission, he drones on and on, and you can't help but want to roll your eyes so hard that they detach. And don't get me started on the delivery quests, of which there are two in the game. Did no one get the notes from Borderland 2 on how reviled that was? A lot of the quests, especially the crew ones, feel like padding and don't really add to the experience.

Regarding QOL, yes, Borderlands 3 gunplay is better. The mantling and sliding are fun. They even brought back "butt-slamming" from the Pre-Sequel, which I really enjoyed. But there's a lot of minor things that I feel like they should have already addressed. In some of the car transport sequences, you have to line the vehicle up perfectly in the delivery zone. There's no sliding in sideways, backing up into the delivery zones; the next quest sequence isn't going to start unless it perfect.
Second, I had a pathfinding issue: once I discovered Tannis' underground lab and moved the reactor to the next scene, I quit out without moving to the next zone; when I reloaded the game, I was told to go to the "garage", but since I didn't travel to the next zone, I couldn't fast travel there. And going to the garage is rather nebulous, with my fast-travel station only pointing me to go to Devil's Razor.
Third, and without spoiling too much, climbing the body of the final boss was annoying; there were often times where my character wouldn't grab on either due to poor geometry or because I simply didn't know where I could grab on. Other times, I would fall between the gaps in the limb and have to remount. And one time I even wound up getting stuck underneath it, having to wait for the stun phase to wear out.

For new Borderland players, I think the hardest part is trying to figure out all the characters and their relevance to the story and place in the Borderlands world; many of them pop up and cameo without giving context. For example: who is Maya and why should we care when she dies ? But I feel like, even for fans, the cameos are superficial. Going back to Maya, her appearance is so brief that we don't have time to reestablish a connection to her before she's gone again.

There are two things that told me that I didn't care for this game: 1. As soon as the story was done, I lost all motivation to keep playing. 2. When I think about what games I want to play, I would much rather play Doom, Destiny, The Division, Borderlands 2, or even Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

P.S. The maps don't feel memorial or well laid out and the vehicles, while fun to collect, don't have enough instances to make them worthwhile.

Update: Post an additional 299 hours of gameplay, I'm still holding firm on "Not Recommend". So why do I keep playing? Mods. Mods make the game not just tolerable, but enjoyable. But because mods aren't the vanilla game the developers made, I'm not going to reward the original work.

I hate baseball. I hate watching baseball on TV.
I hate simulation games. If I wanted to work, I'd go to work AND get paid.

But I LOVE making the pitcher cry and making them lose their mojo. That, by itself, makes the game.

As a fan of puzzle games, The Turing Test is a fun game. Sadly, it's not very challenging or long. The puzzle feel easier than those of Portal and I was able to 100% the game in less than 5 hours. Those points aside, what's there is really good. The evironments are well designed, the voice acting done well, and the puzzles are at least intersting, especially when you get to the body swapping game mechanic. The game loses some points for not being very original with a disemobied voice debating with your character about philosophy/morality.

Wow... Sword with Sauce is crazy fun. Yes, it's only 3 levels and yes it's only in, well, not even beta. But what is there is awesome!

I played through and beat both the mansion and habor using the default setup. The mansion was a *mostly* stealth run. Habor, I just went wild with the sword since the layout is a little more difficult to map out. When I started up city, I finally decided to check out gadgets. Don't make the same mistake I did! Check out gadets ASAP!

Sure, you can go with a bow as your starter weapon, ala Far Cry. You can go with the default sword. You can go with... honestly, I forgot what the fourth thing was because THE SHIELD, the freaking glorious shield! Have you ever want to play a FPS Captain America? The game may not have Marvel branding, but the shield made me feel like I was in the Avengers. It's got the multi enemy bounce. It's got the bullet ricochet. It's got the boomerang return.

Outside of my obvious love for the shield, there are quite a few gadgets for just an alpha game. Drones, black hole generators, shock gernades, traps that automatically headshot people when they get close, coma darts, ninja stars, and a mop... to clean up the blood stains, if you want to play super stealthy.

My complaints about the game? Needs more levels. Also, it needs better controller support. I was able to map all the buttons I wanted, but I wasn't able to map my look. Strange that I could do buttons but not look. *shrug*

Point is, for $3: get it. Get it, get it, get it. As the game stands right now, I can see myself easily putting 10+ hours into it.

Note: As of 21 March 2018, this game is no longer in development. That being said, I would still recommand this game for $6. It is still a fun game with a surprising amount of depth for the price. Yes, development may be dead, but that doesn't mean that the game is bad. Enjoy it for what it is.

As crazy as it sounds, this is probably the closest you'll get to pulling the kung-fu craziness that you see in the movies. Forget any of the Matrix or John Woo games; this isn't gun-fu, it's kung-fu! Druken style, crane style, tiger style! Look beyond the simple stickman animation and 2D design; this game gets intense. Swords, spears, daggers, bows, balls of death! From simple 1 vs 300+ mobs, to smashing environmental props to pieces, to 1 v 1 or 1 v 2 boss fights, this game, for $5, is definitely worth it.

Pros: Two buttons, one for left, one for right
Xbox 360 controller support
Different controller schemes. Don't like L/R arrow? Try B/N keys or S/D keys or the controller.
So many weapons
So many fighting styles
Different encounter types
Scaling difficulty. The better you get, the faster the game gets. The more you suck, the game slows down.
Different enemy types
Great value for the gameplay depth

Cons: Playing the game for a long time will give you hand cramps
Playing survivial mode will wear you out, as it is endless and will continue to speed up
Luca is super annoying

This game, to me, emboides the idea of gameplay over graphics. Play it fun; not for looks.

It's fun, but not quite as fun as Borderlands 2.

The story is a bit weak, the NPCs are a little flat, and the humor feels meh. I'm just guessing here, but a lot of it is because 2k Australia created it. They went heavy handed trying to infuse the game with Aussie-ness. Pickle, one of the NPCs, feels like such a terrible caricature. Cor! Blimey! He's one step away from Crocodile Dundee. (Edit: Scratch that. Apparently it's a Cockney accent. Still a bit much either way.) And sadly, because we're in space, incendiary just doesn't feel useful anymore. Some of the mechanics are terrible too. Trying to jump some of the gaps require more precision than necessary. And Deadlift, the second boss, is a lot tougher than he should be.

So why am I recommending the game? Because all the playable characters are well built. I've played everyone, including the expansion characters, save for Claptrap and loved each of their skill trees. In BL2, I didn't care much for Salavdor, Zer0, Gaige or Krieg. But the PS skills are nailing it. Also, cryo as an element is an awesome replacement for slag, which really only worked in teamplay anyway. And while jumping/boosting feels a little gimmicky, it's still fun to float around and bring down a butt-slam.

In short, as part of the series, it's a bit of a letdown. But if you can overlook that and pretend it's a one-off, it's still fun. Here's looking forward to Borderlands 3.

I got this game as part of the Humble Bundle June Monthly Bundle before it's full release and really haven't stopped playing it since. Think Fallout, mixed with rougelikes, blended with cartoons and big head cheats. Oh, and your goal is to get blackout drunk.

Pros: Interesting art direction. Very Fallout-esque with a touch of Borderlands
Weird/Dark humor
Cool buffs/debuffs
Procedurally generated levels

Kinda cons:
Inventory management is a pain
Equips and crafting don't seem super unique or helpful (yet)
The SOB Hunter. Spend too long on a level and he'll start hurting you down, kinda killing some of the joy of exploration.
Some of the mechanics of throwable objects are strange

I'm still early in the game, but I'd highly recommend it.

Far Cry 3 has an amazing character arc. You are Jason Brody, a bro broing out with your bros and broettes in a tropical island spending your parents cash. But getting kidnapped by a madman and held for randsom sobers you up really quick. Escaping his captors, Jason sets out on a mission to save your friends and get off the island.

What makes Far Cry 3 really stand out is how Jason starts out as a spoiler brat, but, because of circumstance, has to become the hero. He has to work at becoming the hero. It's not just like he get sprinkled with steriods and now he's Superman. He has to live off the land, gutting animals and harvesting plants. He develops his abilities and grows through three skills trees that can be maxed out even before the game is finished.

Gameplaywise, there is an emphasis on stealth. Not as much as Theif or Dishonored, but if you choose to run into stronghold with guns blazing, you will get dropped quickly. It's best to sneak around, scope out the area, mark your targets and fomulate a plan.

Course not everything goes that simply. You could be hiding in the bush, taking your time and not even hear the tiger take a bite out of you. Or the patrolling guard sneak up. The game world is one of the most dynamic I've played in.

But not everything is triple A. The ending is quite anticlimactic. You do all this work and it feels either nothing has changed for Mr. Brody or that he's worse off. Also, if you've played through the game once before or don't really care about the cutscenes, too bad. Your stuck watching them to completion. And speaking of animations, climbing ledges or injecting yourself with meds takes a lot longer than necessary. Maybe UbiSoft wants you to suffer through them to make it more "realistic". It works in combat situations, but running around and exploring, it's really annoying.

Negaitves about gameplay mechanics: I hate what I call "location" detection. Standing under a ledge or over an enemy, you have to look exactly where Ubisoft wants you to look. You can't be slight to the left or slightly in front of; you have have to be right, exactly, precisely where Ubi wants you. Also, who's bright idea was it use the same button to loot bodies to also pick up weapons? No, I don't want to swap my spec'd out Sniper Rifle for an AK47. I want to see if this guy has any money. *sigh*

Outside of those misgivings, Far Cry is still a fun game. There is plenty to explore, hunt, loot and kill in no particular order. Recommendation: Play and beat it once. Then replay it up to where you unlock your last tier of skills and just start picking off patrolling vehicles and guards to your heart's content.

For claification sake, I've played this game since Beta and I love the overall animation and playstyle imaged as a 2D platformer. I guess this really hit a nostalgia nerve for me and my yearning for the old Mario Brothers mechanics. And while I hate to bash something I fell in love with, this is no longer the game that I use to know.

Back in the early days of MapleStory, you had your 4 standard classes: Mage, Warrior, Archer, Thief. Mage and Warrior had 3 subsets each; Archer and Thief had 2 subsets. Finding equipment and hanging out with friends was easy because there was just a few servers and not that many maps. The level cap was set as a crazy 200, but the mindless grinding wasn't so bad, cause you could easily be with your friends and if you found an equip you couldn't use, one of them could and vice versa.

But Maplestory grew. On the surface, you would think this is a good thing; more people = more friends = more equips. True, but Nexon saw this as an excellent opportunity to milk its players through microtransactions.

As the game grew, Nexon built more servers and maps, creating virtual spacial rifts between players. It became more and more difficult to get to the same map as a friend without using a teleport rock (a microtransaction item) or wasting a bunch of time. Nexon created pets, vanity items, world transfers, shops; all for real money. When that wasn't enough, they created more character types, those who couldn't share the cash shop items with the original characters, essentially urging players to rebuy cash items. The new characters also lead to the nerfing of some of the original characters under the guise of "improved" for rebalancing issues. Nexon raised the level cap to 250, milking players for even longer. They created a lottery system called gachapon for in-game items using real money, not to mention special event "lotteries".

Don't play Maplestory. It's not what it use to be. The fun is sucked out of it. Don't waste tons of time and money on it like I did.

This is twich gaming at it's finest. Simple overhead graphics disguise some absolutely brutal animations and well thought out mechanics. This is a game to speed run, work out your pent up agression and have your mind screwed around with by the story.

Where it absolutely shines is in the complexity of play. Every level you complete is graded based on your killing technique(s). It feels weird to say that you are being judged on your murder skills, like you are at skateboarding or on a math test, but killing is a skill. The game seems to ask, "How fast can you kill one guy and transition to the next, the next, the next, the next, the next, etc and rapidly dispatch them with guns, knifes, pipes, bricks, pools cues and whatever else just seems to be laying around? Oh... that's it? Do it again. And faster. And better." It's almost if you're auditioning for a hit with Simon Cowell and I love it.

The collectible masks add new abilities and encourage more replays and the story has some interesting plots twists making the depraved journey all the more enjoyable. Even at full price, I still like I underpaid for this game.