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.

Titanfall 2

7.5/10

So, Apex Legends came out this year and was suddenly very popular. I'm not really into battle royale games, but I decided to give it a try. I find myself confused and out of practice. The training map is very minimal, there's no solo mode and I'm forced to play with strangers. I don't understand why developers try to force people to play in small team games where teamwork is super important. In my experience (DOTA, DOTA2, Overwatch, ...) teamates end-up blaming each other and it gets ugly fast. I find myself wanting for a traditional deathmatch / team-deathmatch. Even if like the battle royale gameplay in Apex, I can appreciate the mechanics, the guns, the characters. I find out that Titanfall 2 which was also developed by Respawn and released in 2016 is on sale for 8$(CAD) I decide to give it a try.

I used to stick to steam mostly and I'm not too familiar with the origin store. I see there's the base game for 8$ and 4-5 DLCs for 30$. It turns out that those DLCs are cosmetic only, there's no extra campaigns or maps. I buy the game, I download it and then I try the campaing.

The campaign of this game is short but amazing. After the first few missions each mission brings its own gimmicks and it really keeps the game fresh. There's a lot gameplay mechanics to tinker with. The main character is very mobile, a bit like Lucio in Overwatch. There are lots of guns and of course there are the mechs. I would say its the best single player FPS campaign I've played since DOOM 2016.

After finishing the campaign I take a look at some multiplayer on twitch and it looks amazing but the skill ceiling seems pretty high. This is not the simple deathmatch game I was looking for.

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.

Slay The Spire (Early Access)

8/10

Slay The Spire is a turned based rogue like RPG where your characters actions are cards. After every encounter you may choose one of three random cards to add to your deck.

Every choice seems important, which card to add to your deck, which path of the randomly generated levels you take, which cards you play on each turn and in which order.

I found that the game is very accessible and enjoyable even if you start over when you die. It lets you make different choice and try different strategies which keeps the experience fresh.

Also when you die or complete your current run, the games give you a score which goes to unlocking more cards to pick from in the next run.

The music is similar to that of Heroes of Might And Magic. However there are few tracks and it can get repetitive.

In 20 hours I finished two runs with each character available in early access, the Ironclad and the Silent, (and died a few times also).

I will definitively come back to try the third character when the game is released.

Destiny 2

6/10

So I tried Destiny 2. The trial. I looks like a decent game.

But I'm not hooked.

• The jetpack is disappointing.
• The intro is annoying I think, (just get me in the meat of game already).
• I felt like I was just wearing what ever has the bigger numbers number.

If I compare it to other similar games:

• Warframe has better movement.
• Mass Effect has better RPG elements.
• Borderlands has better guns
• And all of these have meaningful choices.

Maybe I'll come back to it at a later date if it bundles all its expansions together with a giant price drop. Its not like don't have hundreds of unfinished games on steam already.

Update:

I got to try the first campaign of the game for free (no DLC). I would have tried more strikes but the rewards were insignificant, my level was capped at 20 and power at 265. The game teases mechanics which don't really make sense at the beginning of the game. Like upgrading your guns, why is it so expensive to upgrade low level guns / armor? Would have been fun to be able to carry some gear from early in the campaign to later in the game. No wonder people say the game starts at the end-game.

The campaign is ok, the voice acting is good. It seems a decent game but it's not ground breaking. I don't feel like buying DLC right now, not sure if I would enjoy the end game anyways.

Usually games introduce mechanics as you progress, not sure it's a good strategy to keep everything for the end.

I updated the review with a score since I played the whole base game.

Limbo

7.8/10

Nice little platformer / Physics puzzle game. Not only must you solve the little physics puzzles in the game  to advance but you must be able to execute the solution.

The game can be dark and scary sometimes but its not too frustrating as the character respawns before the puzzle or event that killed him.

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.

Medal of Honor (2010)

4.5/10

The first thing I noticed was that my character was slow, I double checked the controls, but that was it. The fastest way to move around is to slide, by sprinting and pressing the crouch button. With some semi-automatic guns and shotguns I noticed the game would not allow me to shoot as fast as I want. Its the same toggle button to crouch, prone or get up, so sometimes I would go from crouching to standing up by accident. The controls are not horrific, but the object of the game is running around and shooting people so the controls for that should be spot on.

At some point in the game (on PC), you have to press and hold the key "4" to launch a missile to complete an objective. I had to look online.

The game bugged on one of the checkpoints at the end of the game, my character would die in an infinite loop.

Now a few war FPS games do that: infinite spawns of bad guys until you advance to the objective. This encourages the player to ignore enemy fire, advance (in a suicidal manner) and then kill the enemy. And I think that's stupid. There only a few of those in the game but then a again, the whole campaign is super short ...

The story is not amazing. The whole campaign is linear, the only freedom you have is shoot even if your team told you to wait (at least its not game over if you do manage to kill all the enemies anyways. The whole thing lasts between 4 and 5 hours. It could have been faster if the protagonists knew how to run and without the infinite spawns.

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.

Doom (2016)

8.5/10

Doom is back! How will you react when demons start spawning non stop around you? Where will you run? How will you explode them?

The single player campaign features, suit and gun upgrades as well some kind of perk system.

Also:

• Boss fights
• Amazing graphics and polished environments
• A story which does not get in the way.
• Lots of demons
• Many secrets

There's a demo here:  http://doom.com/en-us/demo

My only complains are that multiplayer DLCs are sold separately and that the game often encourages using melee attacks which I think slows down the run and gun gameplay.

I felt quite satisfied after the single player campaign and did not try the multiplayer part of the game yet. I would say the single player campaign is worth it on its own.

Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death

6.5/10

I bought the game a long time ago, at time when I could not resist buying games below 5 dollar on Steam. I never played the game for a long time: I checked the reviews soon after, they were very bad. Its been more than 10 years since the game was release now. How was it? I think its good.

Its a first person shooter(FPS) with a linear campaigns, challenges, and coop/versus multiplayer. I think it compare quite well to other games released in the same period(But reviewers at the time did not seem to agree). If you can enjoy simple first person shooters I think you can enjoy this game.

My complains are: On PC the jump button does not seem to work all the time, the game is short and the bosses are sometimes stupid.

Mass Effect

7.5/10

This is an other review from 2010 that was rotting on my harddrive.
MassEffect is a science-fiction single player RPG. Early in the game there was a lot of dialogs. It really is an RPG in the sense that you what your are going to say to NPCs is going to affect the outcome of your game. The voice acting is good for a video game. The game really starts after a few hours of gameplay when you finally get your ship.

Doing my first secondary objectives in open space at the beginning was very nostalgic. When you drop on an unknown planet, you explore it with a tank and it can take several minutes before you detect enemies. Then you engage in long range combat. Sometimes you find places to explore on foot or it is part of one of your secondary objective. These mechanics made me think of some older games where exploration was an important aspect of the game. However those secondary objectives are repetitive, the maps are always the sames and you get little action for your time.
The gap of quality between secondary objectives and main quests is huge. In the main quests you get a lot of action, cut-scenes and dialog and the maps are big and unique.

The interface for managing items is bad. The game floods you with items, you can get as much as 150 in a mission and when you get to sell them, you only get a huge unsorted list.

There are a few mini games, one of them you will need complete 10000 times if you plan to finish the game, every time you open a chest, hack a computer, a door, what-ever, even rocks, you will have to play. You need to have one of your character with the matching level of encryption to play so you might want to max this ability ASAP since there are loots requiring high level of encryption right at the beginning.

Combats are Ok. There is only one zoom on the sniper rifles. Sometimes your characters sticks himself to a wall when you don't want to. There is a delay when you use an ability or change weapon where you can't shoot. You can run in combat but when all enemies are down you can't run anymore :-S. WTF I have to walk all the way back!? Sometimes tried to tell my team mates to take cover near a door and I would need push them into place so that they were covered correctly.

Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken

7/10

Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken is a 2d platformer with guns, grenades,jetpacks, crates and elevators. It is very cinematic and gives good vibes akin to those of old action movies.

The gameplay goes from very easy to hard. The easy parts are enjoyable and the hard parts make you feel lucky. Sometimes the levels are like small puzzles.

Maybe there are a little too many crate pushing and elevator elavating for my taste however. I remember falling of an elevator by accident and having to go way back via mind control grenades to activate the switch that brings this elevator down.

Bioshock

Note: this is a review from 2010 that was is lying around on my computer (I have a few of these).

6.5/10

Bioshock is an "horror" FPS. You get to play with gunz and powers. You get upgrades and more guns/powers as the game progresses.

The gameplay is fun in the beginning but it gets repetitive. The story and setting are very good. When you die you respawn and I think its humiliating, I would rather reload and find a way to win. Overated. I will not try the sequel.

Note: The second game in the series seems too similar to the first one and seems a waste of my time, but I might try Bioshock Infinite some time

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.

Eats Munchies

5/10

Physics based puzzle game. Its not bad but there must be some better puzzle games out there. The game is very short (2-4 hours) depending if you try to complete everything. Most of the time when you can't fully complete a level, its because you don't know how different objects can interact.

There is support for the steam work shop so maybe people have been making better puzzles however.

When I clicked on the steam workshop it opened a browser and not the steam client, I'm not sure if this is normal.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Campaing

5.5/10

Linear war themed FPS.They try to change the gameplay a little once in while, but its always very short. There was an open map, once (but it was divided in three linear sections). There was some freezing to death, once. There was some racing, once. You get drive and/or shoot from a vehicle once in while.

The story makes no sense if you think about it more than 20 seconds.Sometimes I'm shooting and an ally will jump in front of me.

There are many games like this nowadays so I can't recommend you to buy this one over an other one. The gameplay is a bit simpler than other similar games: you can't be prone and scopes only have one zoom. The destructibility of the environment is amazing however.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Uprising

5.5/10

Command & Conquer is probably the longest running Real-Time strategy (RTS) franchise.

So somehow I managed to buy the expansion without the main game on steam. I thought for sure that I bought complete pack. But yes you can play the expansion as a stand-alone game.

The expansion does not contain many missions but at least you get all the units in the game.

The Good

There are great videos with actors between missions.The music is ok and the graphics are good.

The Bad

The path finding is bad. Sometimes a unit will bump into the unit in front of it and decide to separate from the group and take a big detour. Also friendly fire happens all the time in the most stupid ways. The maps are interesting but the missions are not so good. Also they try to much to make special missions. What we expect is build a base, build an army and fight. I remember a few mission where you must NOT kill an enemy unit. The game is super fast and there is no way to slow it down. But it is somewhat easy so it does not matter so much.

Sometime the game feels polished, sometimes not at all. Why the bad path finding? Why not fix it before the release of the game? Why is it still there in the expansion? 

Dungeon Of The Endless

7/10

Dungeon of the endless is a mix between a tower defense game and a rogue like game. On each level, your team start in a room with your crystal. You must protect the crystal and bring it to an elevator. You explore the level one room at a time. Monters can spawn in dark rooms or rooms you enter for the first time. Many many monsters will spawn when you try to bring the crystal. To help yourself you can power some rooms and build towers in them. Your characters can level up, use skills and wear equipment. Oh and when you lose, you can't reload or anything, you must restart a new game (which will be random and completely different).

The ambiance of the game is amazing. If it was not of the games quirks, I may rate it much higher.

The Good

There are no other games like this one that I know. The ambiance, music and style are very good. The game has a lot of re-playability because of the randomly generated levels, and many characters. It also has many game modes that completely change the rules of the game.

The Bad

The game is complex and not very good at teaching things. Sometimes it does not let you do exactly what you want to do ... unless you kown a trick. For example, you can only order characters to go in rooms, but you can't tell them where to stand or which monsters to attack, but if you tell a character to back off in a other room, and click again in the room where he is standing there is a chance he will stop where you want him to stand. The problems is that there are many tricks like that and in my experience they make the difference between finishing the game or loosing. So go learn some tricks online from other players if you want to play seriously.