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Post by theguy on Aug 18, 2022 21:42:46 GMT
Figment
Not sure what alerted me to this, but it was on my Wishlist and was down to about £1.59 on PSN so I gave it a go.
Had fun with it. It's a adventure puzzle game with an isometric view. You navigate through pretty levels in a mostly linear fashion, doing things necessary to progress further. Turning handles, moving crates, making pathways, all that and more's here and it's done well. The linear design helps the game I think, since it means you generally know where to look or go and aren't searching around everywhere aimlessly for items you may need.
There's action too, but the combat is poor honestly. You get a roll and attack, they don't feel great and none of the enemies are very fun to fight. There's a musical aspect to the whole game, levels click along with the background music and some bosses sing at you, though sometimes you're busy battling them to really pay attention.
Writing/VA is corny, it's also mostly family friendly save for a few random curse words which just seem to clash with the general tone. Doesn't run too long, few hours. Decent stuff
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hicksy
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I'm good for some but I'm not for everyone
Posts: 1,549
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Post by hicksy on Aug 20, 2022 17:26:40 GMT
Plague Tale: Innocence (PS5) - 9/10
For an indie team game one of the very best imo. Takes many of the best elements of Last of Us (stealth) and blends them into a fascinating historical horror adventure. Bar a few slightly clunky sections when the game flows onwards freely it’s a delight to play. The setting is stunning and the relationships between the characters really pull you in. Quite linear but that is part of its charm at a time we are flooded with flabby open world games. Very highly recommended and high hopes for the sequel!
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hicksy
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I'm good for some but I'm not for everyone
Posts: 1,549
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Post by hicksy on Aug 20, 2022 17:31:51 GMT
Immortals Fenyx Rising DLC - Myths of the Eastern Realm - 8.5/10
A wonderful extension from the main game. Essentially more of the same by design with a few tweaks but a surprisingly generous play length for a DLC (took me around 15hrs) and a good mini story with a bright and vibrant twin island map. Familiar but with such a good main game what’s not to like with more of the same and equally as charming?
Season pass in a PS Store sale highly recommended if you enjoyed and finished the main game!
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Post by Samildanach on Aug 20, 2022 19:43:55 GMT
Gun (&) Frontier (Arcade Archives on PS4) Yes I already posted a mini review when I revisited this game on my old PS2 via the Taito Collection Vol 2. I gave up quickly then due to the terrible lag/slow as molasses ship and visuals that looked like a smear of vaseline was over the screen. This beautiful new release by the always excellent Hamster shows what a damn fine game it really is. Very moreish play as once again I descend guns blazin' into a weird futuristic Old West. Yeah it's a banger through and through, as long as you accept the usual caveats of a shmup from 1990 (larger ship hit box and slow speed vs fast enemy bullets). Without the previous horrible lag, Gun Frontier is a lot of fun to play and comes highly recommended, especially if you want to see the inspiration for the later Battle Garegga by Raizing. 4/5
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chug666
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Post by chug666 on Aug 21, 2022 8:54:35 GMT
Ace Combat 7, unashamedly purchased after watching Top Gun and I really enjoyed it. I've played a few Ace Combats over the years and this is the first I've ever finished.
The story is silly, it's not very realistic and it embraces spectacle over everything else, and I'm absolutely ok with that. Often £5 ish in the sales, which is a total bargain.
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Post by theguy on Aug 22, 2022 15:52:51 GMT
Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice
Doubt I'm the first one to come to this conclusion but lovely graphics, good voice acting, nice animations, all wrapped in utterly shallow, monotonous gameplay.
You have melee combat, and you have puzzle solving. What's a shame is that I actually started out liking both. They work well enough and are quite pleasant at first. Melee combat feels satisfying and weighty and the early puzzles are perspective based and you have to find a rune within the area.
The issue is, for some reason, the gameplay just doesn't move on from this at all. It's the same type of puzzle repeated ad nauseum. Move forward, oh a locked gate, find a rune somewhere, open gate, back to step one. The combat suffers a similar problem. Move forward, combat scenario, enemies get mindlessly thrown at you so you slash away and then you move on. No real thought or care to enemy placement. There's a handful of enemy types but none are really all that different to fight from the other. Feels like padding at points. The combat also has camera issues, since you play with a zoomed in perspective so enemies can attack from off screen.
These problems are accentuated by the fact that everything move's at a complete snails pace in this game. The length could probably be halved if your character could actually move at a reasonable pace but no, even holding the run button you gingerly tiptoe along. When most of the puzzles are just based on running around the environment for runes, this slow pace gets very grating. At times it veers into walking sim territory where you push forward on the analog stick mindlessly, get a long, drawn out cut scene or animation and then go back to pushing forward. It's not for me.
For the narrative itself, I can't help but feel it's an example of a story being regarded better than it is just because the production around it is very good. I appreciate the subject matters it covers and I did actually like the ending, but the story itself didn't really grip me throughout. I suppose it could also have been relayed better than the aforementioned drawn out cut scenes.
Props to the team for wanting to create an accurate portrayal of psychosis and other mental health issues, consulting experts to do so, but again, from a gameplay standpoint, this felt gimmicky. The way it's done is to have inner voices whisper frequently in your ear while you play, sometimes jeering you, sometimes cheering you and everything in between. But given you have complete control the whole time, it doesn't really amount to much. The inner voices constantly telling you you can't do something doesn't change the fact that you're able to do everything in the game and it was not really any less a power fantasy than other games where you beat every enemy and overcome every roadblock just fine.
It's set within Norse mythos, which is a fine setting, but sometimes the game just harks on with stories from Norse mythology to loosely tie it to yours and it feels like nothing more than further padding. At least in God Of War it directly related to the events at play.
Despite everything, I probably don't hate the game. What's there isn't necessarily bad, it's actually even good, it just refuses to offer more and becomes very tedious as a result. A game I started off enjoying became one I just felt fed up to play and just wanted to be over by the end of it, and it's not even a very long game.
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Post by pierrepressure on Aug 22, 2022 16:03:19 GMT
That pretty much sums up my view.
I appreciate what it was trying to convey but as a game, far too shallow for me.
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Post by simple on Aug 22, 2022 16:08:58 GMT
On Hellblade’s ending Did anyone else find that because of how straightforward the combat was that they could hold out indefinitely against the waves of monsters that were supposed to overwhelm you?
I loved the game but having to pause and check youtube during that final encounter kind of took the majesty and immersion out of the situation
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Post by theguy on Aug 22, 2022 17:59:52 GMT
On Hellblade’s ending Did anyone else find that because of how straightforward the combat was that they could hold out indefinitely against the waves of monsters that were supposed to overwhelm you?
I loved the game but having to pause and check youtube during that final encounter kind of took the majesty and immersion out of the situation Yup I had that happen too. Didn't look it up though, just got bored and decided to stop bothering. Pissed me off realising I just wasted my time
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Post by dangerousdave on Aug 22, 2022 18:37:09 GMT
That ending took me a good 30 minutes before I dropped the pad on the floor. I got so frustrated. Haha
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harrypalmer
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GREAT ASS
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Post by harrypalmer on Aug 22, 2022 18:43:59 GMT
Yep same. Flawed masterpiece in my opinion. I loved it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2022 4:25:27 GMT
Beat Greedfall, finally. Don't think I got the best ending, judging from the achievement I got, but it was certainly good enough.
Game itself was good. Took awhile to really get going. The intro prologue town, and the main city once you cross the ocean are kind slow, but once you start exploring the other factions and locations, it gets really good, IMO. Kind of clunky, and game design-wise it's like somewhere between the first two Dragon Ages. But it has charm, and the story pulls you in.
7/10 realistically, but 8/10 because I really dug it.
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Post by uiruki on Aug 27, 2022 22:05:58 GMT
Been a while since I've actually written anything up on this. Oops! Time for a catch up. Since I've gotten my Steam Deck, PC games have a little bit about how I found them on the system.
20. Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster - PC - 4/5
Another good FF pixel remaster! Much shorter than the DS version and as a result it really rattles through. It's a nice feeling to just bash through dungeons and move on to the next thing, pick up new jobs, get upgrades and so on; there's no time to get bored as there's always something happening.
The same reservations as the others on PC unfortunately with the stuttering and unsatisfactory menu control as in the other games.
21. Lost Judgment: The Kaito Files - Series X - 5/5
Short but a great story. Kaito's a great character and he's put through the wringer here with a terrific scenario that, much like the main game, once it got going I couldn't put down.
I can't ignore the limited price-performance but at a discount I'd recommend this to anyone who likes Judgment. Kaito's a lot of fun to play as with his style and the new 'detective' type features are fun. It definitely doesn't wear out its welcome either; I'd have loved some proper side stories.
22. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes - Switch - 3/5
A decent Musou that starts well but really runs out of steam towards the end. It was three times as long as the previous FE Musou at 45 hours but I think it could have really benefitted from being closer to 30.
The battle system is good; it's not as fast and smooth as the previous game (which had a decent 60fps mode when playing docked!) and in terms of pure performance it's never smooth. It's no Age of Calamity but with long loading times and a frame rate which never goes above about 45 you're always feeling the strain on the Switch hardware. Kill counts are significantly lower and everything just has a few too many hit points for my liking in this genre.
The story is where it almost rescues the game but as I said it falls at the last hurdle. It starts fast, skipping through the time which was otherwise spent in FE Three Houses hanging around the Monastery but then you end up in a similar camp map running around too much, going through too many menus and talking to too many people. There's character development teased, but then the last bit of the game happens and it just kind of stops with a 'btw you won but we don't show you that' kind of text explanation.
Age of Calamity was an exceptional Musou game, full of variety in both characters and missions, held back by hardware that couldn't handle it. I look forward to playing it on an updated Switch, if that ever happens. I don't think I'd like this one any more if it ran at a constant 60.
23. Days Gone - PC - 2/5
A frustrating mess. An open world game where you have to play pretty much all the available side stuff to you as part of the main storyline. A game about being a biker with a bike that seems to be leaking fuel constantly. A game where you're playing as a complete psycho, muttering away to himself constantly about how he's going to kill every zombie he sees. A 'true' ending which is just a dumb sequel tease.
There are positives; it looks quite nice and once you get the final bike upgrades it feels a bit more freeing but the majority of the game is spent with the game systems actively pushing against you.
Steam Deck report: Ran perfectly happily at 40fps with mostly PS4 equivalent settings; tweaking the resolution down a little smoothed things out even more and the game's AA is so blurry I hardly noticed. The laggier controls due to the lower framerate are a pain at times but a bit of gyro aiming and tuning dead zones made it adequate enough. A good port, and doesn't feel compromised running on a handheld.
24. Vampire Survivors - PC - 5/5
I'm logging this as complete as I think I've broken the game by doing too many money runs.
I don't normally 'do' Early Access games but this one has been an amazing experience since I picked it up in January. A simple game which you can play while doing something else, but one with lots more depth than you'd think and had me looking around for guides on the best builds.
The best part is seeing all the 'new' stuff; it's almost like the old days when you'd hear about a ridiculous new secret in Mortal Kombat and then you'd see it. Stages going into other stages, moving too far in one direction and the screen turning black leading into a new boss fight, and all the unlockable characters. I'll still go back and keep up with the achievements but the last 7-8 months of patches are what I'll remember as a game already worth its piffling cost ended up getting built up into something many times its size.
Steam Deck report: This is a surprisingly heavy game (even my 12 core Ryzen 3900X often struggles when things get chaotic) and the Deck's CPU doesn't really stand a chance of getting to 30 minutes without a lot of skipped frames. It's hardly unplayable, though, as it ends up like an EDF game with the system struggling to display the sheer amount of destruction, and the form factor of the machine is absolutely perfect for this kind of game that's easy to pick up and hard to put down. The author's working on more efficient game code so hopefully this will improve but it's not compromised in any way.
25. Arcade Paradise - PC - 3/5
A funny little game that's more than the sum of its parts. That's a good thing, because the individual parts are often pretty lacking.
The premise of the game is extremely appealing: you are the college dropout child of a successful businessman who is given a grotty looking launderette to run as a way of learning business. You start off doing people's laundry but there are arcade machines in the back of the launderette which end up making more money and that ends up feeding back into itself and you end up with 30-odd arcade games, which you play in order to increase their earning potential.
It's a game of some pretty amazing ambition - 35-plus original games in one, for less than 20 quid? Unfortunately all of them have at least one major issue which seriously harms them. Universally, the big issues are poor controls and obnoxious CRT shaders but many games have other major issues, like the Arkanoid clone with shockingly poor physics, the DDR game with the arrows in the wrong order, the racing game which has corners that you can't take without crashing or the Super Hexagon game which seems to run in slow motion. It's not exactly Cassette 50 but I don't see myself coming back to any of them soon.
It still kept me going for 20-odd hours though; the voice of the character's father is well played and they absolutely nailed the progression. The games being fairly low quality doesn't matter so much when they're constantly coming in. With some more options and a bit of refactoring of things like the controls (especially in the games and on interacting with objects in the world) I think quite a few of the games could be genuinely a lot of fun, and since they're actively patching I think this might be worth revisiting in a few months.
Steam Deck report: After the first patch after a week or so, it just works. Pretty much solid 60 and I played 95% of the game on it. A good time waster.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Aug 28, 2022 5:41:33 GMT
For the narrative itself, I can't help but feel it's an example of a story being regarded better than it is just because the production around it is very good. I appreciate the subject matters it covers and I did actually like the ending, but the story itself didn't really grip me throughout. I suppose it could also have been relayed better than the aforementioned drawn out cut scenes. I'd agree with that. It's not that the writing is bad, it's just that the writers never shut up and that they really want to sell how our protagonist is a tormented figure and they are fairly heavy-handed about it. It didn't take long until the spinning camera and the game making sure to show me Senua's grimace got annoying. Movie-esque presentation in games is hit-and-miss for me, but in this case it started to get on my nerves quickly. I only played until I had beaten Valravn.
By the way, how is the character development system? Does it have more detail than Technomancer?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2022 5:58:15 GMT
Can't compare it to Technomancer directly because I only played the prologue in that. I think all Spiders games have the same issue of slow intros, which you just need to power through. But similarly, you can choose a class and basically skill out of it as you please. That said, you do have a lot of freedom to multispec, at least if you do the sidequests. ToomuchFluffy
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Aug 28, 2022 6:47:00 GMT
Tales of Arise
Had a lot of fun with this (and am still having fun as I've decided to actually clear up all the side content after beating the final boss, as opposed to saying I'll do it and then moving on to something else as soon as the end credits roll.)
The best Tales game since Symphonia. It looks beautiful, has fun combat, and most importantly has a great cast that I didn't hate (even if it seems like you can't walk down a path without them chattering away in 10 skits every couple of minutes.)
Only real let down is the story, which is merely good as opposed to great and really lacks an antagonist. I like that it was trying to do something different but felt like the writers either got bored halfway through, got told to cut a lot to keep the length down, or just weren't sure how to actually realize it.
9/10
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Post by beastmaster on Aug 29, 2022 9:19:10 GMT
Powerwash Simulator
Loved it. Done the career mode and the specials. I think I’m done with this now.
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Post by Sarfrin on Aug 29, 2022 17:03:29 GMT
Powerwash Simulator Loved it. Done the career mode and the specials. I think I’m done with this now. How do you finish the gnome fountain? Long extension from the ground?
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on Aug 29, 2022 21:13:07 GMT
Life Is Strange True Colours - 6/10
Disappointing. Lacks the ambition and drama of the previous games. It's far from awful but the characters and town are quite dull and the ending is particularly rushed.
Series probably needs a bit of a refresh at this stage.
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Post by beastmaster on Aug 30, 2022 12:55:46 GMT
Powerwash Simulator Loved it. Done the career mode and the specials. I think I’m done with this now. How do you finish the gnome fountain? Long extension from the ground? Just did a lot of jumping around. Can get right to the top if you jump on the right places.
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Post by Sarfrin on Aug 30, 2022 13:39:48 GMT
How do you finish the gnome fountain? Long extension from the ground? Just did a lot of jumping around. Can get right to the top if you jump on the right places. Thanks. I've just got the top to do, so I'll give it a try.
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Post by dangerousdave on Sept 1, 2022 15:58:17 GMT
Far Cry 5 (Series X)
A buggy game that isn't quite sure what makes it engaging. It has all the mechanics for a decent game, but the assembly is just way off. Nice gunplay, mediocre and often chaotic combat and terrible missions. The map is also too big and unfocused for its own good.
I wouldn't say avoid it necessarily, but you have to put all the work in to enjoy the game. So perhaps I just wont recommend it.
Spelunky (Switch)
I've completed this game a number of times now, but by some miracle I did it again on my first attempt since March? I got the jetpack on 2-4, bought a compass and pickaxe on 3-2 and just sprinted for the exit on every level afterwards. I thought I was just going to be warming up for a better run, but I got to the end without even taking damage. My run was just a smidge over 12 minutes, which is my fastest to date. No way could I ever get that 8 minute achievement.
As always, Spelunky gets an essential rating from me. It's not overly complicated, which is always a risk for games of this genre. The challenge is pure and you stand a reasonable chance of beating the game on almost every run. And for some reason it just never gets old. Good times!
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Post by simple on Sept 1, 2022 16:33:20 GMT
Life Is Strange True Colours - 6/10 Disappointing. Lacks the ambition and drama of the previous games. It's far from awful but the characters and town are quite dull and the ending is particularly rushed. Series probably needs a bit of a refresh at this stage. Oh bummer, I’ve got that on my to play backlogue but still slogging through LiS2 first. Although I’d take dull characters over this whingeing pair of crybabies and their opening premise that I never bought into.
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Nitrous
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Post by Nitrous on Sept 1, 2022 16:46:25 GMT
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Really enjoyed this, an excellent game and got the the plat trophy from it. Played in 60 RT FPS mode. I did try it at 30fps but unfortunately I've become one of those people that can feel a difference in fps.
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on Sept 2, 2022 0:01:58 GMT
Life Is Strange True Colours - 6/10 Disappointing. Lacks the ambition and drama of the previous games. It's far from awful but the characters and town are quite dull and the ending is particularly rushed. Series probably needs a bit of a refresh at this stage. Oh bummer, I’ve got that on my to play backlogue but still slogging through LiS2 first. Although I’d take dull characters over this whingeing pair of crybabies and their opening premise that I never bought into. Oh I liked 2 a lot, even if the characters weren't all as compelling as the first game. Enjoyed the road trip - felt like a proper journey.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 0:04:43 GMT
Yeah, I thought 2 was great. As a Mexican American, I really related to the story too, for what that's worth.
I didn't think Before the Storm was all that great, so my expectations for True Colors aren't THAT high seeing as it's the same studio, but I do plan on checking it out eventually.
But yeah, 1 and 2 are my faves in the series.
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Post by RadicalRex on Sept 2, 2022 0:54:37 GMT
Terminator: Resistance (Steam) - 6.5/10
Divisive game, most professional reviews tore it apart but many franchise fans love it, hence a "very positive" on Steam. I found myself somewhere in the middle.
And yeah, the fan service is great. First, there's a silent agreement between the game and the player that there are only two Terminator films in existence, which is great and also fact. It gives its best to capture the feel and atmosphere of the future depicted in those and completely ignores anything that might have happened in hypothetical sequels, which don't exist of course.
And sometimes I got that feel and it was great. Like when trying to get out of a bombed hospital, hiding less than two metres away from squads of Terminators patrolling past in all their chromey skeletal glory, accompanied by those sounds from the films. There were some more moments like that in the game, when the devs just nail the vibe and you can see they really love the source material.
Sadly, those few moments weren't enough to make me look past that it's a very bare-bones semi-stealth shooter with large stretches of nothing interesting going on. It's clearly a low budget game, with sparse content and just barely functional gameplay. The AI is crap, encounters are as simple and repetitive, environments are mostly the same barren wastelands with the same bombed identikit buildings everywhere over and over again--actually some of the areas are even revisited. Of course you might say that's par for the course, but it doesn't feel like they even tried to mix the generic rubble up with anything at all. I went slow and stealthy and even did all the side missions (which are all generic fetch quests), and finished the game in a mere 10 hours, which isn't great especially considering that some of the stages are recycled.
Not the worst game in the world, but not exactly good either. The tone is spot on and the moments that I felt really immersed in the future of the only two films in the franchise were great, but it's just barely enough to make up for the very basic and pretty dull gameplay. And in turn it's just barely enough for me to not regret the €16 I paid on Steam (at 60% off)--without the Terminator licence, I'd have refunded the game after half an hour.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Sept 2, 2022 4:44:10 GMT
Watched the review by gman some time ago and it seemed that the Terminators are quite hard to deal with first before becoming trivial. That didn't make the best impression on me. But I guess it's still the best option for franchise fans.
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Post by RadicalRex on Sept 2, 2022 6:08:17 GMT
Yeah your firepower increases massively over the course of the game. Early on it's often best to avoid Terminators altogether, which is pretty fitting, but later you can just mindlessly blast them to bits. The last stage was by far the easiest, felt almost like cheat mode.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2022 6:12:30 GMT
Watched the review by gman some time ago and it seemed that the Terminators are quite hard to deal with first before becoming trivial. That didn't make the best impression on me. But I guess it's still the best option for franchise fans. I can't take any gmanlives review seriously, because every one of his videos is "THE FAKKIN LIBERAL MEDIA WANTS TO TAKE OUR TITS AWAY SONNY JIM"
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