All I want is for the frame rate to be fixed instead of locking at 15 fps for boss fights, and for that stupid hippos hitbox to be fixed as well.

OS: Arch Linux
GPU: GTX 960
Controller: Keyboard and mouse, steam controller

Few stories break boundaries like this one did. I stumbled upon it while browsing youtube and i was impressed so much by it that I wanted to experience the game myself. This game ends up leaving you with questions, often questions about yourself and your morality. For a game that's so under rated, it is still highly popular among the community.

[THE GOOD]

The aesthetics are phenominal and the graphics (for the most part) hold a level of realism that blends well with the art style.

The music really gives a gritty feeling and a truly hopeless and depressing one as well .

The story is (without going into much detail) probably one of the best uses of parallels, multiple themes, imagery, foreshadowing, level of detail, and a final message that I have ever seen so far in any game.

The gameplay isn't as bad as many claim it to be, especially on the higher difficulties. Level design really improves towards the end of the game and I can't help but feel that was intentional as well.

The voice acting is probably the best I've heard and seen in any game and even any movie. Moreover not a single character feels like filler. I still remember even the ones that appeared for only one mission, for each character is truly unique.

[THE BAD]

There are moments where the graphics didn't fully render and there were a few glitches with the soldiers. There was also a moment during the last mission where Konrad's body suddenly became bright and was visible for a split second before the scene played where he was turned around.

Cursing is used throughout towards the end of the game, but at the same time I can understand due to the war scenario.

As some have pointed out before regarding the white phosphorous scene, it could have been done better, where enemies wouldn't end up spawning immediately.

Violence is throughout the game but it is good that it tries to show it in a negative light.

Gameplay wise combat can feel a little clunky every now and then. Sometimes when you want to take cover in a location that looks possible to cover behind, you end up standing out in the open instead. Personally I had few issues but it was annoying when it did happen. Also the range and accuracy on some of your arsenal is too much and too precise. Understand that it's not meant to be a fully realistic game, but there are areas where some reality would be beneficial to have included.

[THE MASTERPIECE]

Few games have left me chills like this one have, chills that keep coming back as i remember the music and the moments throughout the game. It questions the psychological and spiritual stance of one's stance and values, and even questions narratives that are portrayed in games, movies and other forms of media as well. Truly this game was well thought out to the very most intricate detail and it shows well with this game.

So if you've grown up on games like Pharoah and Cleopatra from way back when, then you will definetly (not sure exactly though) enjoy spending countless hours of playing, having fun, then ultimately regreting having spent valuable time on a video game instead of on something else in life that can be considered productive. Of course if you consider productive being the act of learning how to manage a nation of varying cultural backgrounds, histories, and in turn how to change history then this game is for you!

[THE GOOD]

You can develop your civilizations towards whatever path (within the confines of the game rules) you want. Want to be peaceful? Go right ahead. Warmonger? Not the best option but its your choice as well. You have that kind of freedom in this game.


You ultimately end up wanting to expand and grow your civilization and enjoy seeing it grow as time progresses. The fun arrives in what type of strategy you should take in terms of what technology you should research. It becomes a game of balancing the need for research to improve how much money you can make, the military strength you can get, the rate at which you can build things, and the means of which you can get more culture, research, happiness and faith for your people.

The visuals are also impressive and each unit also changes their appearances as you progress in the game's time.

[THE BAD]
Micro managing can be very annoying in this game, especially when you're at war with another nation in the game. You don't have the option of dragging the mouse over several military units at the same time and then tell them where to go. Instead, you have to go through countless units at your disposal and give each and every one of them a command as to where they should go. In those case you just end up telling your units to go whereever just to save time, but in doing so you can send them to a place which you may end up regretting later.

I also wish there was a way to have nations and city states merge with yours through peaceful means instead of just conquest being the option. Of course there is a civ which has the ability to merge city states peacefully with their own, but I was hoping for something like that being available for all civs.


[THE FANTASTIC]

This game will take countless hours as you enjoy growing and spreading your civilization's borders. Will it stand or will it fall? That is the battle you have to face as you play each game.

Controller: Steam Controller, Keyboard and Mouse
GPU: GTX 960

Just Cause 2 is a game where you play as the bad guy, Rico, whose sole purpose is to cause chaos in a foreign country and bring it into a state of destruction and put someone else in power. Throughout the game your sole purpose is in causing chaos and collecting items which can be used for upgrading your health, vehicle and weapon levels. You have hundreds of locations you can visit in a large sandbox map, which may vary from small towns to military bases in varying sizes. With that said, let’s talk about both the good and the bad elements in the game.

[THE GOOD]
Controls offer a variety of options including swimming, skydiving, parachuting, driving cars, driving boats, flying planes, flying helicopters, stunt jumping, akimbo firing, grappling like Scorpion’s and Spiderman’s powers got fused together. There’s a wide range of options.
The physics are wacky, crazy, and I love it. You’ll fall far longer than how you should in reality. You can tether yourself toward the ground as your falling over hundreds of meters and come out completely unscathed. Yours and enemy vehicles will tumble and toss exponentially out of control. You’ll find yourself fighting against hordes of enemies as you use this world’s physics to your advantage. It’s in the moments where you don’t have any weapons to use to your advantage that the game really shines its potential, where you have to really think fast and carefully as you try to destroy the last destructible areas in a settlement.
Of course going direct is the most common option as you have a wide variety of options from primary types such as shotguns to rocket launchers, to secondary types such as submachine types, as well as grenades and remote trigger types. You can also akimbo secondary types. When falling you’ll have an infinite amount of parachutes at your disposal in which you can keep traveling by gliding using the main gizmo at your disposal, the grappling hook. It’ll pull you towards things, it will pull things to you, and it’ll pull things together. The grappling hook is the main tool which you will more than likely be using throughout the game. It’ll offer a quick escape and also opportunity to reach otherwise nearly unreachable goals.
Vehicles come in a variety of land, sea, and air based types. You’ll have armored vehicles for causing mayhem and sports cars for having a speedy escape as you try to get away. You’ll have boats going in pursuit after you and hoards of enemies heavily armed trying to take you out. You’ll have helicopters for getting away and causing mayhem, planes for getting away and trying to cause mayhem. All of the vehicles you can stunt jump on, allowing for some nice shots and additional actions to follow. You can even jump from vehicle-to-vehicle as well.
For both weapons and vehicles you can upgrade them to increase their stats, such as armor, capacity, and so on. You’ll find upgrade parts that cater specifically to weapons and specifically to vehicles throughout the map.

[THE BAD]
Not a big fan of causing chaos for the sake of chaos to honest, even though the game’s story tries to justify the intentions behind you actions. To some it might be a petty reason but for me it’s a big deal.
The character himself was uninteresting and his small remarks and phrases weren’t enjoyable, they came off as annoying instead. His appearance isn’t that interesting and there’s also no option to change his outfits as well.
The sound could be better, with explosions sound like they don’t hold enough power behind them. Music could be much better in this game, it becomes so repetitive and annoying to the point of which I just turned off the music.
There are a lot of glitches throughout the game. At times when I’m firing and suddenly turn around abruptly my weapon keeps firing even though I took my finger off the button, and it only stops when I press the button again. There was certain section at the end of the game where right after the cutscene I landed in the water instead of staying on the moving objects, which required me restart from the last checkpoint.
An issue I found occurring often was when I was falling from a tall building or structure and I just wanted to get one floor below it and grapple to it then. However, when doing so I suddenly end up skydiving and the camera resets to below me instead of the area I was getting ready to grapple to, in which I found myself missing the area I wanted several times just so I can get an item due to how the game was structured around this mechanic.
I had a hassle getting the steam controller to work properly in terms of camera sensitivity, so I finally ended up switching to mouse and keyboard. However there was one area where the steam controller excelled above the mouse and keyboard, and that was in flying helicopters and planes. For helicopters there was a minimal difference except with how the camera would stay properly centered for steam controllers vs how the camera was slightly off center when I used the mouse and keyboard. But when it came to flying planes, the mouse and keyboard made it almost impossible to properly fly as the camera would go far in front or to the side as I tried to move left and right, making it extremely difficult to fire upon targets using planes.
Grappling hook options feel limited for something that seems so powerful. I try to connect to enemy helicopters together and instead they detach easily from each other and keep causing me problems. It’s really when it comes to helicopters that I find myself wishing that the grappling hook could have shown more of its possible abilities.
Crouching is another issue I had in that couldn’t fire and crouch at the same time. I could only crouch and not move from that position.
It’s in this game where realized how stealth should be an option even in large scale crazy physics sandbox games like this. How does the enemy know where I’m at when something blows up far from where I’m at? Or how do they know I was the one who destroyed the water tower using a remote item? They suddenly all know who did it, and where I am at the same time. It’s an annoying feature when suddenly I have 3 helicopters chasing after me every single time. Even more so stealth could have offered more features and funny interactions from enemies as they’d see something chaotic occurring, or in seeing a vehicles spinning out off control on a wire.
I’m also really tired of helicopters suddenly knowing where I’m at after traveling miles away from where I last was and they suddenly spawn on the map. I understand that that’s part of the “heat” mechanic where the higher the heat the more enemies as well as the more dangerous enemies are.
The logic of how the game’s world suddenly has enemy boats spawning in a lake below me where its obvious there aren’t any docks or villages surrounding it in the first place.
The towns are boring and offer very little variety, and there are so many throughout the map. What’s worse is that you have to look for collectables in order to fully complete them instead of just destroying a few key points. Fortunately you have a radar that can help you navigate and see it there’s an item nearby. But it can be apparent after a while how it is hard to know if you obtained all the items or not. Cities were the most unenjoyable parts about the game. The collectables are the most annoying part about settlements. There's also not much to do after completing most of the game.

[THE MEH]
This game has positives that hold potential, but the negatives just end up annoying and bother me instead.

GPU: GTX 960
Controls: Keyboard and Mouse, Steam Controller

Let me tell you about a game that everyone keeps referencing when it comes to PC gaming, one that I ended up playing late ahead of everyone else. In the end I didn't expect it and had a lot of fun. It isn't just spoken highly of for the memes and highly advanced graphics that continue to stay up to date even today. This game is fun, visually beautiful, and is overall a masterpiece in my view.

[THE GOOD]

Let's start with the settings, you have a variety of features you can tinker around with. But really got my attention were the little ones such as being able to change the suit UI color scheme, that is the color of you menu when you pause, and the suit voice settings of either male or female.

The game itself starts out somewhat cinematic at first and the game is somwhat linear when you start it, with a path that you can only go in one direction to the objective. But it feels natural none the less. During this time a tutorial plays out. After that the game shifts between open world and linear paths. That said it fits well and doesn't feel unnatural as it occurs, as the paths you can take to reach an objective on the map are your choice.