Recent reviews by Sentinel Lyons

The Gods shader is definitely one of my favorites. How else could I make the Themysciran Goddess of Truth and War look so good?

There's just one problem. The Gods shader is only available through the Ultimate Edition and Fighter Pack 1, and the Demons shader is only available by purchasing the Ultimate Edition of the game. Unfortunately, the Legendary Edition recently launched and replaced the Ultimate Edition. The Legendary Edition essentially does what the Ultimate Edition did; gives the player all Fighter Packs (DLC characters), but now includes the old Day 1 bonus of Darkseid along with the addition of two more Premier Skins added to the three offered in the Ultimate. But the Demons shaders are NOT included with the Legendary Edition.

Keep in mind the Legendary Edition is $59.99. If you wanted the contents of the Legendary Edition along with Demons shaders, you'll have to do A LOT of jumping through hoops. You would have to purchase:

• Injustice 2 Standard Edition ($49.99)
  
• Ultimate Pack ($39.99)
  
• Darkseid ($5.99)
  
• 6,000 Source Crystals for the Premier Skin you miss out on ($2.97) (Grid can be received for free by linking your mobile account, so I'm leaving him out of the equation.)

That's a total of $97.95 just to receive the contents of the Legendary Edition AND the Demons shaders. Whether or not you think it's worth to pay that much over the Legendary Edition's $59.99, well, that's up to you.

My advice to Warner Brothers, Netherrealm, QLOC, or whoever is in control of the prices, MAKE THE DEMONS SHADERS APART OF THE LEGENDARY EDITION.

The Gods shader is definitely one of my favorites. How else could I make the Themysciran Goddess of Truth and War look so good?

There's just one problem. The Gods shader is only available through the Ultimate Edition and Fighter Pack 1, and the Demons shader is only available by purchasing the Ultimate Edition of the game. Unfortunately, the Legendary Edition recently launched and replaced the Ultimate Edition. The Legendary Edition essentially does what the Ultimate Edition did; gives the player all Fighter Packs (DLC characters), but now includes the old Day 1 bonus of Darkseid along with the addition of two more Premier Skins added to the three offered in the Ultimate. But the Demons shaders are NOT included with the Legendary Edition.

Keep in mind the Legendary Edition is $59.99. If you wanted the contents of the Legendary Edition along with Demons shaders, you'll have to do A LOT of jumping through hoops. You would have to purchase:

• Injustice 2 Standard Edition ($49.99)
  
• Ultimate Pack ($39.99)
  
• Darkseid ($5.99)
  
• 6,000 Source Crystals for the Premier Skin you miss out on ($2.97) (Grid can be received for free by linking your mobile account, so I'm leaving him out of the equation.)

That's a total of $97.95 just to receive the contents of the Legendary Edition AND the Demons shaders. Whether or not you think it's worth to pay that much over the Legendary Edition's $59.99, well, that's up to you.

My advice to Warner Brothers, Netherrealm, QLOC, or whoever is in control of the prices, MAKE THE DEMONS SHADERS APART OF THE LEGENDARY EDITION.

Injustice 2 is my second fighting game ever, the first being MKX. The game plays very similar, with some slight differences such as the clashing system replacing the breaker system, and the blocking system all together. You'll like Injustice 2 if you enjoy other NRS fighters.


Since microtransactions are currently a hot topic in the gaming community, I thought I would mention how microtransactions impact Injustice 2, and the gameplay.

To put it simple: they don't.

The only things you can buy with source crystals (the microtransaction currency) are shaders (different color palettes you can apply to your fighter), premier skins (character skins that change a character from the current roster to another DC character that is very similar, for example, Supergirl has a Powergirl premier skin), transforming gear (giving gear stats to a different piece of gear), and levelling a character up to level 20 (which you can do in-game within an hour or 2). All of these things listed are purely cosmetic, or only affect multiverses, NOT pvp.


The same company that fixed MKX, QLOC, ported IJ2, so the port is quite good. It does not come without fault, however. Many of the menus are plagued with lag, especially the character select screen. It is admissible, as the gameplay is smooth, but is quite annoying to deal with if the game is played in a long sitting. Certain gear types also make the game unplayable if equipped, such as extravagant gear. The game will lag terribly and in extreme cases, CTD.

EDIT: This edit is being made as of February 8th, 2019, but is long overdue. The menu lag has been alleviated heavily and is barely noticeable. I also have not experienced lag or a CTD error from certain gear pieces anymore. I would go out on a limb and say this has been fixed as early as of March 2018. QLOC was very receptive with bugs in this PC port, and I am looking forward to their port of MK11!


The story mode leaves off from IJ1, so if you haven't played that game, watch the cutscenes on YouTube. The PC Port for IJ1 was done terribly by High Voltage. The story mode is very intricate for a fighting game, and gives rewards such as epic gear for completing chapters. The facial animations are incredibly realistic. Only one character triggered the uncanny valley for me, being Kara's (Supergirl) mother in the opening sequence. Because her mother only appears one time, she was most likely animated manually rather than given an actual mocap actor. The rest of the cast is amazing, nonetheless.


Multiverses are very similar to MKX's "towers", except they actually give incentives to the player other than a skin and character ending. Multiverses can award gear, mother boxes (loot boxes that contain gear, can only be obtained through gameplay- they are NOT microtransactions), etc. Almost every character on the current roster has their own "Legendary Multiverse" (EDIT: With the Legendary Edition update, every single character on the roster now has a Legendary Multiverse including every individual Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle), a Multiverse dedicated to the character that is incredibly hard, rigorous, and tedious. If completed, however, the player will receive a Legendary Gear that has its own unique appearance, stats, and abilities.


The player has many different options when playing online. Most players opt to play Ranked Versus. In Ranked Versus, the first player to win 3 matches wins the set. If you lose a match during the set, you may opt to switch characters, but the victorious player must stay on the same character. Some players opt to play Versus and Competitive Versus. Versus is a fight with gear stats and abilities enabled, Competitive Versus has those disabled (as does Ranked Versus.) Players can also opt to play King of the Hill, where many players can join a lobby and fight the top "king", until someone finally beats them, and the cycle continues.

The game's playerbase is rather small, so if playing the game at a late time, finding a game will be harder than normal.


All in all, I recommend IJ2. It can be fun for the seasoned veteran, or picked up by the fighting game newbie if they put in the time. QLOC needs to work on the porting aspect though, and if they can work that out, the game would be loads better. This game will definitely be one of my all-time favorites.

9/10

On behalf of OpenIV and modders for the GTAV community everywhere, ♥♥♥♥ Take-Two Interactive, ♥♥♥♥ Rockstar Games, and ♥♥♥♥ Rockstar North.

Empire: Total War™ is a milestone for the Total War series. With great units, a detailed campaign for the great American Revolution, and diplomatic relations that make sense.

This installment in the Total War series is arguably one of the best, next to Napoleon: Total War. It features many different game modes, which are: Campaign, Road to Independence, and Battles (as well as Multiplayer, but only battles may be accessed through this). Campaign is treated like a Civilization game. You pick a nation, and must conquer a certain amount of territories, plus a few required named territories (EX: Britain must capture New France, Georgia, Leeward Islands, Ireland, Gibraltar, Florida, Hindustan, Scotland, and England alone with 25 regions by the end of the year 1750 in a short campaign). In the campaign, you may build numerous buildings such gardens, barracks, markets, fur traders, brothels, etc. You can also build units, and lead them into battle. The battle system in campaign has 3 options. Siege, Assault, and Auto-Resolve (along with retreating). When sieging a city, it will "starve" a city to where you can take the city over without fighting after a number of turns, depending on it's defenses. The enemy can fend off a siege, though. The assault option takes a more advanced turn on battles, to where you may command your units to fight the enemy units, and manage the battle manually. The auto-resolve option is just what it says, it automatically decides who the winner of the battle will be depending on numbers, technology, and skills of both of the empires. This option is what I usually choose, unless the odds do not look in my favor or the skills look even. In campaign, diplomatic relations also take place. Depending on which nation you are, you may start out with some allies depending on the history of your nation (EX: Spain is with Britain, Great Britain is with United Provinces). Other nations become wary of being your allies if you go to war with your own allies, or break treaties. The longer you have someone as your friend, the harsher the trust falls with other nations. Economy also exists within Empire, and gaining money can be fairly challenging. You may become trading partners with other nations (the best route, just don't declare war on everyone!), you may tax your people highly (not recommended, as the people will revolt to make new nations), and you can always take over other regions (though you will have to exempt them from tax for a few turns to lower the chances of rebellions and strikes).

In the Road to Independence, you are the Thirteen Colonies. You first start by fighting Native Americans, you settle. The campaign then focuses on settling the lands, and defending them from Native Americans. Later on, you have to capture regions from the French in the French and Indian War. This then leads to pushing the actual British out of the lands, claiming Independence. A fairly fun campaign.

In Battles mode, this focuses on battles and battles only (aka "Assaulting" a city in campaign). You can either customize your own battles, or choose from the historical ones already laid out for you.

Multiplayer for this game features Battles mode, and no campaign. It is fairly fun, but be sure to warm up in campaign first before trying to conquer your friends!

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***BUGS***

This game is known for having some AI problems and not a lot of difficulty. This can be fixed by DarthMod, but I never saw the need to use it. Thanks for reading my review!

Saints Row IV is definitely fun the first time through, but after that, you have to make it fun yourself.

Saints Row IV delivers the ridiculous behavior as usual. It's not as fun as Saints Row 2 (not talking about the thing they call a "PC version"), but it definitely is fun. Saints Row IV has a adequate storyline that may have you on the edge of your seat, depending if you're easily impressed. Once you beat the storyline and side quests, and DLC's if you buy them, you'll need to download mods to make the game fun. IdolNinja, the community manager for Volition (company that developed all of the Saints Rows), makes great mods, including a mod that can get vehicles that are in the game's files, but not in-game. He has also made a mod to customize aircraft. The list goes on and on.

Now the co-op aspect definitely makes the game fun. If you're picky picky with cheats though, only play with friends. Every person on any Saints Row cheats, so never play public if you want to save.