Recent reviews by ginoo

I already sang all my praises when I reviewed the original Portal game, but Portal 2 is a considerable step up to its preceding counterpart.

Portal 1 was great, I loved it, I think everyone should play it (preferably before Portal 2); but this one right here is a different beast. Portal 2 is a masterpiece, a genuinely perfect game. I've played the coop campaign with 4 different people, but - for some reason - never touched singleplayer. And oh boy did I miss out.

Portal 2 is so ahead of its time. If it was to come out today, people would easily pay AAA price for it. The graphics are great, the game is cinematic, the puzzles are fantastic; extremely creative, innovative, and challenging (but not too challenging), and the writing of the characters and story is absolutely hilarious.

Genuinely, this is the funniest game I've ever played, GLaDOS is as hilarious as ever and Wheatley is a perfect addition to the franchise.

I could go in-depth about every chapter and what makes it great for me, but there's no use, I don't really have a negative word to lose about this game. Easily one of the best games I've ever played - and a contender for the best and most timeless game ever made.

I've only played this game for an hour, but I can not in good faith recommend this to anyone if the experience is the same as it is for me.

It's a buggy mess. I would've loved to get to the meat of the story and the world, but having to deal with constant random inputs without me pressing anything, softlocking bugs that make you unable to interact with anything and require you to restart, and other minor annoyances like clipping issues is simply too much for me. In that hour that I played I had to reload from the Main Menu three times because I was unable to continue, and when I was actually able to play I was plagued by random actions I didn't press the key for, getting me killed in the process several times.

This seems to have been going on since game launch, according to the 4-5 year old support threads I tried consulting in an attempt to fix this, so I don't think that it will get fixed any time soon. However, while there are a lot of people with the same issues I have, it seems to be running fine for the majority of players. So since it might be an issue on my end, I'll give this game another shot in the future, maybe on another system. Until then I don't really have a reason to put my hands on this game again.

Getting this + the SOTV DLC on sale for like 10 bucks might've been the best deal I've ever gotten when it comes to video games. ROR2 very quickly became one of my, if not my favorite game of all time. The concept, stages, characters, soundtrack, lore... I wouldn't even know where to begin praising this game if I tried. (okay, that's a lie, I'd start with the soundtrack, Chris Christodoulou is a genius)

This is the first the time in a while that I'm actually addicted to a game that's *genuinely* fun. Not fun in the way that predatory live service games are, but the type of actual fun that should be the ultimate goal of any video game. I've poured a couple hundred hours into this game already and there will be several hundreds more to come. Also, this game has one of the most dedicated and talented modding communities I have ever seen, ranging from QoL mods to basegame-quality-like characters and stages, so even if you get sick of the base game at some point you're not running out of new content worth checking out any time soon.

Not sure how this game evaded me for so many years, it's fantastic.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is genuinely gorgeous; if you spent any amount of time in the game world you will know exactly what I mean. The lighting is beautiful, the environments are gorgeous, and the in built photo mode makes sure you can make any frame of the gameplay look like a cutscene. Mix this with the occasional unforgettable, unique scenario you find yourself in, and you got the foundation for a potential classic of a game.

However, that's about it. Like literally, that's it. Beyond the visuals, there's nothing about this game that stands out in a good way. The voice acting is mediocre, the characters are mildly irritating, and the stealth mechanics, which are supposed to stand at the core of the experience, are so poorly executed that they shatter any sense of immersion. It’s almost comical how bad they are - I found myself laughing out loud several times at the absurdity of what was happening on screen. The formula is always the same: “Oh no, there are guards! Let’s distract them by making some noise.” You can either throw a rock at something metal to divert their attention for an unrealistically long time, or toss a pot to achieve the same effect, allowing you to sneak past while they stand around cluelessly until their alert meter resets. Even if you get caught, simply ducking behind a wall or into a bush is enough to confuse your pursuer, who loses track of you as long as you keep crouching, even if you’re just a couple of meters away.
Just to prove a point here; this is your average stealth moment in this game: https://youtu.be/INfn_Xe1G18

Apart from the lost potential of the stealth mechanic, there's also a lot of missed opportunities and lost potential when it comes to the world itself. As I mentioned before; the game's gorgeous. Like really gorgeous, especially if you take into account how small of a team is actually behind this title. But what's the main thing you want to do in pretty worlds if you're anything like me? Explore; and there's nothing of that present here. You can't even *slightly* stray off the intended path in this game. In a figurative sense there's a bold, red line on the ground guiding your every step, and if you even dare trying to step off it, you either die or... well, can't do it in the first place. It's just one of the many handholding aspects in this game that cut the actual game interaction to a minimum.

And there's a lot of that. Oh man, there's a lot of handholding. Just make a Life Is Strange ripoff at this point instead of disguising all these scripted events as gameplay or "puzzles". A four year old could finish every aspect of this game without much trouble (don't test that theory tho, this game is pretty violent at times). Said handholding either occurs in the form of the elephant in the room, aka one interactable object in the area that can only be used for one purpose, in one direction, or in one way; or in the form of overexplaining and repeating things. Your slingshot is a tool you use throughout the entirety of the game, but the way you use it gets incredibly repetitive quite quickly. "Shoot this chain so XYZ object falls down", "shoot this chain so XYZ gate opens", etc.. Every scene that can even remotely be called a "puzzle" has one obvious answer and one obvious answer only, and a lot of the time it's just the same thing you did in the prior chapters. And if you, for some reason, take longer than 15 seconds to do something, your (very annoying) 5 year old brother or whichever companion is with you at the time will tell you exactly what to do and you'll get a prompt to press F to look at the object of interest. Where's the fun in that?

This game is a 17 chapter borefest that tries to convince you that there's an interesting game and story under the facade. Don't let the graphics fool you.

Everyone agrees Mick Gordon is fantastic, but imma be honest - there's only so much difference one guy can make when there's an entire studio trying to make the blandest shooter the world has ever seen.

The maps are generic and about as memorable as the story, which is effectively non-existent. I couldn't get myself to care for it in the slightest; it's just a pitiful excuse at a premise so you have a reason to shoot. And honestly, this is kinda what I expected - this is what I bought this game for. I just wanted some mindless action; even as someone who had never played a DOOM game before, I knew it's not gonna be the pinnacle of storytelling, so that's totally fine.

However, what I *did* expect is to at least get some decent gunplay in return. There's little to no feedback present in this game; both for your outgoing shots or your incoming damage. This makes this game, despite the performance being fantastic and the movement being responsive, incredibly frustrating and almost wonky to play.

The level design is also extremely forgettable. While the maps might not be "ugly" per se, there's simply nothing going on and every environment just transitions into the next in a blur, leaving you with what FEELS like the same experience over and over again. Not only is there a severe lack of memorable set pieces, but the maps are also incredibly annoying to navigate. I'm all for a good challenge in video games, but if the hardest challenge is you trying to get from point A to point B, I can only blame poor design more than anything else. Not only are the environments (especially ledges) super inconsistent in what can and cannot be climbed, but every single layout is simply confusing to traverse as well. This wouldn't be a problem if this game at least had a good (mini)map, but I genuinely found myself pressing tab to peek at the map every other step.
Genuinely. DOOM might actually have the worst map I have ever seen in any video games. The 3D mode is awkward and confusing, the 2D mode is... awkward and confusing. That's honestly the only two words I need to describe it. The map icons aren't easily distinguishable or even recognizable, seeing the map's layers in 3D mode is simply annoying and reminds me of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ late 2000s sci-fi games, and the 2D mode is lowkey unusable due to most maps having a lot of vertical overlap. Overall it just feels infuriating to even get a hang of this game in the first place as a beginner.

Also, to me pretty much all enemies feel the same, but I don't want to elaborate and put any more time into this review. I just wish there was a bit more to them than running, gunning, and *occasionally* dodging projectiles. I quit after the third mission, so maybe I missed out on the good parts that caused this game to attain an Overwhelmingly Positive rating, but I guess I won't be around to find out

There's a reason Portal is one of the most universally loved franchises of all time. It's immensely fun, has stood the test of time and will continue to do so for decades to come, and is universally accessible in every way possible: any system can run it, anyone can afford it (it goes on sale for like one buck ten times a year), and anyone and their mother can get a hang of the gameplay loop. Not only do both games feel fresh and novel even after all these years, but in GLaDOS we also have one of the best and most hilarious video game antagonists in history.

Portal and its successor might be the only games I would genuinely *urge* someone who has just bought their first ever PC to play. It's simply that good. Just buy it already; you'll love it. Everyone does.

this is the most fun ive had playing video games in years

I sold my csgo skin for this

Thank you, dear modding community, for making this one of the best VR game on the market. The game itself is great, but the tons of mods, especially the song browser, just guarantee that you'll never get bored. Definitely a must have if you have a VR headset, there's no reason not to buy it.

You can lick batteries