Death's Door

8/10

Solid Zelda-like game. Simple yet polished. The story is similar to fable yet original (no princesses to save). It improves on the classic Zelda formula in many ways:

• It keeps things simple even as the difficulty ramps-up. Enemies always remove one point of health when they hit the main character. There are no armor that reduce the damage taken or enemy attacks that remove more than one point of health. Fights get progressively more chaotic as enemy attack become harder to dodge, but these attacks are telegraphed so even if the game seems hard sometimes, once you learn enemy attack patterns and how to avoid them then it's not too hard to overcome these challenges.  There were two bosses I didn't figure how to beat without looking up online guide, but in general I could just learn the bosses behavior by trying again and again.
• As progress is made in dungeons, shortcuts are permanently unlocked to navigate the dungeons and some harder encounters will not respawn after dying if they are completed, but plants used healing do respawn after death. So even if you die often, as long make some progress, it's not too frustrating and its possible to progress even when struggling.
• An other thing is that new enemies change when you progress through the different areas of the game. So this keeps the experience fresh. Its also not tedious to travel between different areas as there is a central hub that connects all the different areas of the game.
• There are many hidden secrets that contain resources that can make the main character slightly stronger. These could make a slight difference if you were missing just a few hits to finish a boss but overall these are not as important as in Zelda games. For example in this game you start with 4 health points and can unlock up to two additional health points (as far as I know). Where as in some Zelda game you can get up to 30 hearts in total. So upgrades help a lot; 6 health points is 50% more health points but learning the patterns of enemy attacks is more important. To find these hidden secrets you don't need to bomb random walls or burn random bushes. There are always visual hints so it is probably possible to find everything if you are observant, but there are additional hints found on items or given by characters in the game. Many times a reward is visible from the beginning it's just not obvious how to reach it or you have to remember its location and get it later. Sometimes when you lead the character behind a structure, the camera will turn and reveal a secret door or something, so exploration is rewarded. Whenever I found an empty room I knew something was up since usually the level design is always very dense and thoughtful, I don't remember any area that was completely useless.

I played on windows, the game is include with the Xbox game pass subscription.

Nier: Automata

 7.5

Beautiful third person action RPG. Very artistic with a simple slightly philosophical storyline which doesn't try to be too smart. It is somewhat innocent, like a futuristic fable.

The gameplay is very good overall but, the game has a few quirks which can be very frustrating. It does not auto-save, and this seems intentional. There are no save points until after the first boss, so if you die there you have to restart the first 30-45 minutes. I died at the first boss in 5 second because my character got stuck between two saws and it killed me instantly. The start of the game does not seem to hard: you have plenty of items  to heal yourself and a chip which is equipped by default will heal your character when it is low on health, so unless you have a freak accident its very possible to make it through the first part of the game without any trouble. But it's very frustrating if you happen to die at the beginning. There is no save points at the beginning so it's not as if you can save and experiment too much. The introduction does not do an amazing job at explaining the controls, some hints are given but you can make it through thinking that you got the point while you actually don't. I figured how to target enemies (with a mechanic similar to Zelda: Ocarina of Time) only on my second attempt which made it a lot easier to control the camera and defeat the first boss. Also there are many jumping puzzles in the game but a lot will be impossible unless you know how to do a third jump with a combination of keys which makes your pod throw you character a long distance. You can also do different combo in the air to increase your jumping distance. I suggest looking up YouTube videos if you need to know more. I didn't figure these myself and don't know if the game even hints at these things.

The game has many endings, each ending adds a letter on a label on the save file. I think many of these game over endings are meant to be funny and players are meant search for them, but because the game does not save automatically it can be very frustrating if you trigger one of these endings at the wrong time. At one point there was an emergency after turning in a quest, I rushed towards the objective but at some point there was a fork in the path, the camera was not facing the right way and my character entered the wrong path, within 2 seconds, before I could hear the full warning from my pod saying I was going the wrong way I was at the game over screen. I can't help but think that the games wants to punish me for not saving before turning in a quest. Am I supposed to be entertained here?

An other critic would be that some enemies of secondary objectives have massive health bars. Many times more health than bosses from the main quest. Its more an  button mashing endurance challenge than anything else. If there would be only 2-3 of these I would not mention it, I think there are just too many of those and it's just annoying.

Also, as soon as there is a massive hole in the ground, go do the quests in flooded city. It's not obvious there is a sewage pipe that goes there. If you wait until main quest shows you how to go there all the secondary quests there will disappear.

The game is divided in multiple parts but you will have to replay the first part with a different character and some small differences to unlock the last parts.

Anyways these were the reasons why I can't recommend the game for anyone. But otherwise the game is not too hard. The combat is very responsive. Its fun to equip and upgrade chips and weapons. The storyline is cinematic but simple. I really appreciated the game outside of it's few flaws. The game is available on multiple platforms, I played on PC, at the moment the game is included with Xbox Game Pass.

Mass Effect 2

8/10

After playing the first Mass Effect in 2010  I did as I usually do: I played a completely different game next.

I never guessed that so much time would pass before I played the sequel. Eventually the stars aligned: I was bored after Christmas, I did not feel like playing any of the games in by Steam backlog and the game was on sale. So 9 years after it's release, and 9 years after I played the first Mass Effect here's my review of Mass Effect 2.

Overall the game is very good. It mostly improves upon the first game. This time there's not much old-school ambiance exploration gameplay: there's no time! You've got to save the galaxy! Gogogo! There are still many secondary missions and this time their quality is on par with the rest of the game, however, the game will force you into the main objective once in while.

At some point I realized that I had been doing secondary missions for one hour and that none of them involved running around shooting aliens. It was a coincidence, most of the game is action oriented, I just happened to do a few role play missions in a row. I would say that the game has a good balance of action and RPG elements.

I was a bit disappointed by the few choices of weapons. I've heard the argument that its meaningless to put lots and lots of choices of weapons in a game if it they do not make a difference or if there is only one obvious good choice. But then again just make them meaningful! Some weapons could be better against different types of enemies or situation. There are ammo abilities in the game which play a similar role but I thought they were somewhat uninteresting. Watch-out! I'm using my ability to use armor, shield or barrier piercing ammo!

 My first character was of the Adept class (more based on abilities and less on guns). There is a global cooldown in this game and I would say that for me this is probably the most boring class. I restarted as an Infiltrator, and it was  much better, sniping enemies and setting them on fire between shots and running around invisible and gunning them down with my sub-machine gun when they are alone in a corner.

I did not bother importing my saves from the first game. There might be perks associated with this like more paragon points and seeing the impact of your action in the first game. I did not remember my choices in the first game so this did not prevent me from enjoying the game.

So, yeah, I do recommend this game. Its still very good on PC in 2019.

Realms of Ancient War

5.5/10

Realms of Ancient War is a pure hack & slash action RPG. It is functional but does not offer the same level of engagement as other popular titles (Diablo, Torchlight, Path of Exile, Titan Quest ...).

Skill upgrades are pretty straightforward. For example for the wizzard there is only one spamable  spell, you start with 1 point in it and can upgrade it 3 times, so 10 minutes in at level 4 you are set: 90 % of the damage you will do for the rest of the game will come from that spell. The other skills all have cooldowns.

On PC, There is only 4 keys for skills: 1,2, left-click and right-click. You can swap to a second hotbar with tab. The limitation in the number of hotkeys was probably imposed to facilitate publishing this game to consoles.

Gear upgrades straightforward but irrelevant until the last chapters of the game. For the most parts, they would provide a few percents (1 % to 5 %) difference from the character's base stats. The best gear upgrades were available at a merchants seen one time in the campaign and then remained unchallenged by drops until the end of the game.

The main character has the ability to take control of some enemies, this is advertised as one of the main feature of the game in trailers, but for some reason for me it only worked once after many tries. It required my character to be pretty close to the monster in question which was unlikely to happen often with my wizard anyways.

Overall I would not recommend this game unless you feel like hacking/slashing through thousands of monsters without having to think about gear / skills or other character customization that other games in the genre provide.

As a side note I would add the game immediately made me think of Silverfall. I think Silverfall offers a bit more complexity and a more involved story, but I felt that the games were similar when started playing ... Maybe my opinion was set from the beginning since I knew both games were published by Focus Home Interactive. I looked on mobby games and could not find any more links between the two games: Both games were made in France by now dead developers but otherwise I could not find anything linking the two games together.

Borderlands

7/10

This apocalyptic first person shooter with RPG elements showers you with randomly generated and often over top guns. The story and the world are engaging, there's coop multiplayer, bosses and lots of fun to be had.

I tried the sequel also but found it was not as good.

Battle Heart Legacy

6.5/10

Battle Heart Legacy is a fun little action RPG game. The game has basic 3d graphics but the art style is good for a mobile device. You control your character by taping on the screen, which works fine *most* of the times. The game has random encounter which are insignificant most of the time.

The game has an interesting stats and class system where you can unlock the abilities of the different classes by allocating stats (Strength, Dex, ...) on the character sheet. However you still need a trainer to learn the skill, some trainers can die in the story if you don't help them. I suggest you avoid Bard and Paladin because charisma sucks. It might be worth it if you want to play a very long time however as the bard has a passive skill which lowers the requirements for learning skills from the other classes.

Also, even if I had a rather thought paladin/fighter character, the final boss had a melee aeo attack which would one-shot me. Because of the controls and path finding my character would sometimes not be able get out in time. This was quite frustrating, as the final boss has a rather long monologue which is replayed every-time you want to figth him. It would be *GREAT* if you could just restart the boss fight after dying.

The quests in the game are simple and fun, but I found that I would get under leveled and had to grind. I think it would have been better to either put more content in the game or ease the level progression. Its a basic hack and slash so the grinding phases are not very amazing.

Overall I would recommend it you know you are going to be bored on a plane with your Ipad. At least it worked for me. The game does not require an online connection unless you want to save your character to the cloud.

Torchlight and Torchlight 2

Torchlight and Torchlight 2 are action rpg / hack and slash games. There are many similarities between these games and the first two first Diablo games. More this later.

Torchlight Review

7/10

Torchlight is a single player game. There is one town, one main dungeon to explore and you can also open portals to some other areas. Most of the dungeons and areas are generated randomly. These dungeons and areas are packed with monsters. Sometimes  they, will come out of the scenery in great numbers.

You get flooded with items very fast, but there is a solution for this: your pet can carry items to town and sell them for you.

The graphics of the game are simple yet the art in general feels very polished. The music also fits the game very well. The game supports and has tools for modding.

The game is very polished in general, in its own style at least. The main complain is that the game is a bit repetitive. Go down, kill monster, do quests, swap gear again and again and again ... Also the different classes and skills are somewhat unbalanced.

There is a free demo of the game if you want to try: http://www.torchlightgame.com/

Torchlight 2

6.5/10

Torchlight 2 is basically Torchlight, with different classes, multiplayer, open areas, new area types and monsters and multiple towns..

The multiplayer aspect might be the most important improvement compared to its predecessor. However, even if it feels as if there has been just as much effort put in making the game, I felt more disconnected while playing. I was just going from an area to the next, cleaning everything, swapping gear, saying ok, ok, ok to what ever npc, rinse and repeat ...

Torchlight Vs Diablo

There are too many similarities between to two series to name them all. In Diablo/Torchlight you play a grunt/ranged lady/mageguy who goes deeper and deeper in a maddening dungeon from a single town to fight whatever evil thing is at the bottom. In the sequels (spoiler!!!!!!!!!!!!), you go after the main character of the first game who's gone mad because of whatever evil (spoiler end!!!!!!!!!!) All similarities must be intentional. Some of the minds behind the first two Diablo games have been trying to repeat their success while making Torchlight, to the pleasure of some of the fans of the genre.

So Torchlight is a reboot of Diablo made in 2009 with some gameplay innovations a new skin and style. Torchlight 2 also takes a lot of cues from Diablo 2.

So what about it? Well some of the small gameplay innovations are pretty nice but, at their core the torchlight games are copy cats done years later, they can never be as ground breaking as the Diablo games were in their day. Diablo was a master piece and revolutionary for many of us. You cannot repeat this feat just by copying, you must come up with something new, fun, and involving which has its own soul.

Bastion

6.5/10

Maybe I had too much expectations for this game? Things were looking very good at first. The narration, is amazing, the art and ambiance are great. I got bored somewhere in the middle, and it felt like it was good again at the end.

Again, my old joystick did not work with this game. I played with keyboard and mouse, the controls were not bad. In some circumstances my progress was not saved which was annoying. There is some replay value, but I'm not interessed.

The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim

9/10

Skyrim is a fantasy sandboxed action RPG and the fifth major installment in the long running Elder Scrolls series. It can be played in first or third person, but I always play in first person because it makes one of the most immersive experience I ever had.

As A Sequel

In my opinion Skyrim surpasses the previous installments in the series. Sure the Oblivion and Morrowind were great, among the best in their time, but Skyrim is better on every level. One of the biggest improvement is the leveling system. In the previous games, you had to count and level your skills in appropriate proportion otherwise stats points would be wasted when your character leveled. Skyrim ditches the stats, and introduces skill trees for each major skill (One handed weapons, Destruction magic, stealth, ...) and you can level you skills however you want. So its a lot more fun to build a character. 

Huge, Deep (figurative and literal), Fantasy World

As in the other Elder Scroll games, the world is huge. There are lots of dungeons to explore, some of them scale with you level. There are both generated quests and normal "handcrafted" quests. The generated quests are bland and redundant but are optional. The handcrafted quests' quality is very high, so I stuck to those and played 150 hours this year! Some of them have lasting effects as they will make you join factions or will permanently change your character (you can become a vampire or a werewolf for example).

Too Much Undeads

My advice would be to not do the quests you don't want. There are way too many undead dungeons in the game, but the vast majority of them are not mandatory. When you are bored of an area go somewhere else. If an NPC gives a quests you don't feel like doing, don't do it. One quest giver NPC was a cannibal, that does not sit well with me so I just killed him. Don't like vampires? Instead of doing the quests for the vampires, join the vampire slayers!

Mods and DLC

The developers released tools to mod the game and the community really took the game to an other level. Some mods out there are said to add quests of quality as good as the original game (with voice actors and cut-scenes and all).

Make sure to buy the version of the game that comes with the DLCs, some mods require them. The quests and areas added by the DLCs were great. They are far from being as big as the original game (because its so huge), but they are bigger and better made than many full games out there. Its also refreshing to play the game in a different areas.

Mod Links:
http://skyrimgems.com/index.html
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/skyrim


Steam Link:
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/28187/

ArcaniA: Gothic 4

6.5/10

Gothic 4 is an action RPG in a fantasy setting. The game is similar to the Elder Scrolls(Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim) series but is more simple. And actually, that's one of its better qualities. When I play an Elder Scroll game I spend a lot of time trying to optimize my character  and the game is so big I have the feeling of being  lost. In contrast Gothic 4's main quest takes you through a series of sandboxes each with its own optional quests. Also there is no classes or races, just a series of skill lines where you distribute points, its straight forward and unless you distribute evenly all your points you wont regret your choices (and even then I think the game will be enjoyable). I did get enough points before the end of the game to max lightning and fire skills, and put enough points in a melee weapon skill line to be able to swing my weapon continuously. I would equip two-handed swords with bonus magic damage, it was a lot of fun.

It seems that some quests have alternate endings which is great. Also there are many secret areas. I found some that were very hard to find and other times the game would tease me but I would not know how to get to a room.

The graphics are beautiful on my 5 years old PC, I just don't remember playing games with such great scenery.

The story and voice acting are what pull this game down in the rating. Its the typical prophecy/destiny story. At the end I was a bit bored and because of the way the story unfolds, I was thinking "OMG, can I kill the final boss already? Stop making me run around". 

Some error must have been made while recording the voice actors initially because sometimes the voice of an NPC changes. Its as if they patched their mistakes but sometimes had to rely on a different voice actor.

Also sometimes there are bugs when you speak to the NPCs in a specific order, they'll talk to you about something an other NPC has told you yet. 

The AI is stupid. It pretty much just charges at you. Often ranged mobs will trow missiles at you but will hit the mellee mobs which charge you.

It is a pretty, fun, relaxing game if you can get over its flaws but I can't just recommend it to everyone. It took me 24 hours to finish the game.