Seneste anmeldelser af etneveL

I have played the retail version of this game on an older system and I remembered fondly about it, but now I replayed the Steam version after more than a decade.

Star Wars Republic Commando is a FPS game, where you play as a clone commando squad leader and do different missions in the clone wars. The game idea is pretty good, the story also alright and all of the missions feel unique. Some of the gameplay elements, like the command system for your squad is a nice addition and it’s a core element to play through the game, as you don’t feel like a one man army, because the game is just difficult when you are alone. The playtime might seem short, but it feels just enough in general. The soundtrack and the sounds are great, especially for its time. The base control scheme is a little bit weird, but you can get used to it or change the problematic keys. The graphics for it’s time is also nice, however for the current standards it feels outdated, especially some of the low quality textures

Now, there are some problems which are coming from the game’s age, for example the too strong shake effects, too much mouse sensitivity in the menu, low sensitivity at the beginning of the missions or load game. These are all pretty annoying and it can be blamed on the Steam version, however there is a guide made by Nê |J14K| which list down possible patches and fixes for these and other problems, which I highly recommend to apply to your game because without them it's somewhat painful to play the game. You can find this guide here.

However, there are some problems with this game nonetheless. One of the most common make it or break it aspects, is the difficulty. There are multiple factors why this game can be painful: first of all most of the weapons are inaccurate, so you need to learn how to use them in this game and work out the ammunition problem. Then, a lot of enemies are bullet sponges, although the common ones are not bad. Finally, the hard difficulty is masochistic, in which I started to do my playthrough, although medium could give some challenge for a few people as well. The first two things are something I can manage, but the last one is just wrong on many levels, and it gets more annoying from the Ghost Ship part, it gets ridiculous.
Then, a lot of props in the game have too big hitboxes, which sometimes can be weird. Occasionally the teammates sometimes do not want to complete their commands, they get stuck, but if you push them it can get them out of this “trance”.

But truth to be told, if you get over the fact that this game is just difficult and you use the patches, you should be entertained by this old school Star Wars FPS. I can recommend getting this game, but instead of 9.75€ get it around 3-4€.

I have never played the Halo games, and since I got this collection on Christmas, I wanted to try them out. Thank you for the gift!

Buying the collection, you will get every main Halo title up until Halo 4, with reworked graphics for Halo: CE Anniversary and Halo 2: Anniversary, which you can even change to the original graphics settings too. It’s a good thing that you don’t have to download all games at once, since all of them listed as DLCs you can choose which one you want to download. There is also cross-platform multiplayer for them, even for co-op, and there is also a map editor which is a great addition, although it is not usable for CE and ODST. Multiplayer active for most of the titles, which I will explain more in their specific reviews. You can also make your multiplayer emblem, customize your character model. Also, there are multiple leaderboards for achievements, different types of playlists for campaigns which all add to the replayability and to improve your results in the games.

I talk about each game’s multiplayer state in their reviews, but in general I can tell that this game is more active in the US region, so if you play from outside of the US, expect to play multiplayer mostly in the active hours of the US. Latency did not feel bad, although it depended on your connection. You can occasionally find servers and a few players in the EU, but it’s not really common. Also, I was not able to find any game for the competitive game modes, so I suggest using the server browser to find matches to join.

The collection has its own launcher, which you download first when you launch the game and it will need a XBOX account to login before doing anything. This additional DRM is not in the liking for some people, but personally I don’t really mind it. Also, none of the game has split screen capability, which could be an issue for some, especially since this was a well known feature in any Halo game.

Still, in my opinion the collection in theory is pretty good, especially for those who have not played these games yet. I will list here my other reviews related to all of the Halo games in the collection, listing them in a chronological order:

Halo: Reach
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Halo 2: Anniversary
Halo 3
Halo 3: ODST
Halo 4

For those who are interested in the Halo universe and have never played any of these games, I think this collection can be a very good deal for them. For those who are interested in FPS games I can also recommend, as in my opinion Halo is providing an unique experience which can be enjoyed for most players. It’s also good for relieving these games on PC if you know the series, but it depends if you are fine buying all of the games in the collection. I can definitely recommend buying the collection, but wait until a sale to get them all.

Halo 4 is the sixth game in chronological order of the Master Chief collection, officially published in 2012 for the XBOX, and it’s available on PC thanks to the Master Chief collection.

The story continues 4 years after Halo 3, where Cortana wakes up Master Chief in the remains of Dawn, as someone or something scanning through the wreckage, and also Master Chief learns that Cortana deteriorates due to how AI’s working and therefore he wants to find Dr. Halsey from who made Cortana and could help her to recover.

The new HUD and the general outlook of Halo is alright in my opinion and for 2012 I think it looks great, especially some of the maps and areas looks the best, also the cutscenes look nice too. The character building for Cortana and Master Chief is really nicely done and the overall story is alright. The story is around 5-6 hours long, which feels just okay to get through.

The multiplayer does not have many players, even though it’s playable but the matches have a different style, it’s like you are playing a COD:MW multiplayer match with killstreaks and loadouts. It’s unusual from Halo, but for me it was not that bad, but hard to find any players. I did not play the co-op mode however. Soundtrack was alright, although this time I did not feel it was unique, but it was still okay.

Before listing my problems with this game, I need to mention that Halo 4 is different from the previous titles like game style, visuals and how the story is presented. This difference is shown in the multiplayer as I have written, but because of this, most people who like the series did not like these changes and differences, but I suggest to give it a try still, because not all of them are bad.

For me, the look of the Covenant enemies is weird, which I had to digest. Also the sound and outlook of some of the weapons are unusual, but I could get used to it. Some of the character motivation in the story just makes no sense and makes me question the story. They really force the story to take on a certain route, and it’s not making it straight forward. Also some details in Halo 4 do not add up from the previous games, because once again there is quite a lot of additional info used from the novels and comics, which if you have not read somethings does not make much sense and makes the story weird. Some of the weapons are OP to use, which can make the game trivial, although this is a double edge sword, since if you need to go against an enemy which has one of these weapons, you are in trouble. On the other hand, the new enemy type is not interesting, not characteristic and really annoying to fight against as they can take a lot of bullets, and their weak spot is almost impossible to hit. On top of that, they have a bunch of abilities which makes them more difficult. I sometimes cry back at the Halo Reach bullet sponge enemies, instead of going against these new guys, they are just not fun to fight against. Seriously, I was okay with the campaign until these guys got added as an opponent. The villain of the game falls into this same category, being bland and a cliché, and even though it is powerful just does not give that vibe that I should care about it.

If I said that Halo 3: ODST is a hit or miss game, then Halo 4 is literally that and the opinion can be varied between players. Personally, I did not like the visual model changes for the enemies, weapon balances, the Prometheans and the villain and certain characters’ motivation which forced the story, but I don’t think these make the game that bad. It’s harder to like and I get why this game is somewhat hated in general, but l had an alright time with it and even though it’s not my favourite game of the bunch, I don’t dislike it more than the first game. I can recommend giving it a try, but get the collection when it’s on sale.

Halo 3: ODST is the fifth game in "chronological order" of the Master Chief collection, officially published in 2009 for the XBOX, and it’s available on PC thanks to the Master Chief collection.

In the game we play as an unnamed rookie in a ODST group when the Covenant attacks New Mombasa, the same attack which happened in Halo 2’s Metropolis level. The team drops near to a sole covenant supercarrier, but the team’s captain, Care changes trajectory which misses the carrier, and then the ship enters slipspace, and sends an EMP shockwave which knocks the ODST pods in different locations. The rookie wakes up 6 hours after the jump, and needs to find out what happened with his teammates named Dutch, Romeo, Mickey, Buck and Dare.

The game looks okay for a 2009 console title, although for me there is not much difference compared to Halo 3, but I still think it’s decent. The soundtrack is pretty alright. I liked the “open-world” like map design for New Mumbasa level once again, where you can basically explore the city at each opening location, and for the first time Halo introduces a map menu for the series. I liked these ideas, which gives the ODST troops more tactical and sometimes avoid confrontation, because you are not playing with Master Chief here who could mince through enemies with ease. Also, in the game in some of the levels we can play with different characters, knowing their character traits and story more, the game is high on atmosphere building. The story starts out a bit slow in the beginning, but it gets traction and it’s pretty enjoyable. The overall atmosphere of this game is very good.

ODST does not have custom game modes, only the official modes and maps available. The player base is quite small, but bigger than Halo 2’s. Overall, it’s decent playing it, but usually you will play some kind of Firefight or Floodfight gamemode, which are cool but there is no real opportunity to play PVP. I did not play the game’s co-op mode, however.

However, I think the game might not be appealing because it’s a bit different from the usual Halo titles, mainly because of the slower pace of this game and the somewhat bullet sponge enemies and the lower health of the characters (even though their breathing sound on lower health will scar into your soul as you will hear it a lot and somewhat loudly), but I think this is somewhat fair because you are not playing a Spartan now. Also, the story of the game does not really add more to the base Halo story, it just adds an extra story to it. About the campaign, the playtime is really short, as you can easily play it through in like 3-4 hours. One thing which I could not understand, why this game is considered to be the 5th game in chronological order? It should the 4th one, considering the time which it plays in, it's a bit confusing.

I was very surprised about ODST, I did not had any expectations and I got quite a decent campaign and alright multiplayer. Sure, it’s not really a main title strong game, but still enjoyable in my opinion. I can recommend giving this one a try, but buy the collection on sale.

Halo 3 is the fourth game in chronological order of the Master Chief collection, officially published in 2007 for the XBOX, and it’s available on PC thanks to the Master Chief collection.

The story follows where Halo 2 kinda ended on: Master Chief falls to Earth, specifically to east Africa, where Johnson and Arbiter find him. They join up in an UNSC outpost with Keyes and Lord Hood to have a plan against Truth, to stop him activating a Forerunner artifact which can activate all Halos, meanwhile Master Chief sees Cortana in his head, who got left behind.

For 2007 the game looks pretty decent and runs really well, especially considering this is a port from XBOX, for the current times however it’s not too bad, has its charm. Soundtrack is really good and most of the new weapons and weapon balances are great, making the game different although I have to get used to them. Difficulty is still challenging at times, but this feels fair in most places. Story is getting more interesting and has its own twists and turns, I enjoyed it. The game has a lot of references to older Halo games which are cool to see. The game feels very good to play overall, the campaign does not seem too short either even though it's only 4 - 5 hours long.

This is probably the second most active game multiplayer wise, although it mostly has fun game modes and slayer matches with sniper only, but still alright to play. I did not play co-op mode, however.

There are a few things which I did not like, starting with the starting plot of the campaign. If you only play the Halo games and you don’t check the additional media about the series, you have no idea why the start of Halo 3 is different from the Halo 2’s ending. It’s weird, but truth to be told it does not ruin the main story but definitely going to raise some eyebrows. Then, as I said the difficulty is quite balanced, however there are certain enemies who can take irreal amount of damage and that can be annoying at times. Occasionally there are some models with incorrect hitboxes, but it’s quite rare to find these. I could also nitpick about the fact that the last level has an escape sequence which is basically similar to the Halo 1 escape sequence, but it's bigger and better, but that’s not a serious problem.

Going in chronological order, for me this is one of my favourite Halo games in the series. It does a lot of things right and even the annoying elements are also manageable. Multiplayer could have been more active but still playable in general. I can definitely recommend playing this one, although previous Halo games are needed to play to understand the story first. Get the whole collection when it’s on sale.

Cultic is a horror-fps game, where you play as a detective who have been removed from its case where a crime wave goes through a place called New Grandewel, in which people got abducted and killed without a trace and you as the detective removed from the case, who wanted to uncover more about it, so you take it on yourself, but you find out that a mysterious cult is behind it.

The visuals seem to be retro, but feels modern at the same time, it’s quite a good mix. They are unique and very fitting, and can also make certain levels creepy. The soundtrack is also pretty nice and the whole atmosphere of this game is fantastic. Gameplay has some cool mechanics, like using props as a weapon and how to use throwable grenades, which needs some time to get used to, but I find them alright. The gameplay overall is really well done thanks to the interesting exploration opportunities in each level, or the balanced weapons which are all situational so you need to use all of them in different cases, or the pretty good map design and enemy usage in each level. I rarely give props about this, but there is definitely a replayability in Cultic, either you want to finish it on a higher difficulty or try your luck with the survival mode. The game itself is challenging enough, but does not feel unfair. The mood swing in this game is really well done and it is done right on each level.

One thing I want to note is the second chapter is still in the making, even though it has been announced to be published way before, so chapter one’s ending might feel a bit too open ended without answering the important questions, but I still found the setting of the game interesting.

However, one thing which I couldn’t get used to is positioning myself on the levels, because in some cases I often missed stairs or jumps and I don’t know why. I’m pretty much familiar with FPS and movement based games and I think Cultic has a different view model or something with this effect. Occasionally you can see some graphical glitches related to enemies but it’s not too often. And to me, I felt the gameplay could have been a little bit longer: even with the prelude chapter I was able to play through the game in 7 hours on hard difficulty.

I’m not surprised why so many people compare this game to Blood, because it does take inspiration from it. This is a gem for sure, where almost everything is done right and just feels good to play this game. I can definitely recommend this one to play, even for the full price.

The Test: Secrets of the Soul just like all Test games sets up a series of questions for the player, which it needs to answer honestly to get the truth about itself in the end.

Just like before, the base idea which is basically a personality test works once again. I feel the questions and the final result is better written than in the last game.

But what I did not understand is why this game is any different from the last Secrets of the Soul game or how does it connect to it, other than the entity which questions the Wanderer is the exact same in both games? I don't understand why it is necessary to play the last game, it does not add anything to it in my opinion. Also, the same issues I have with this game are also here, which is commenting your word to the game's page and the possibility to answer slightly different to your questions based on the mood or time of day basically, which will end up a slightly acceptable result by the user in most cases.

However, once again as a free personality test which tries to remind you who you are based on the answers you give, it does fine and if you interested in this one, you can give it a go, but does not make anything too different from any of the 'The Test' games in the core and the reviews still not giving a clear idea why this game is good. Still decent, but not much of a difference from the other titles.

The Test: Secrets of the Soul sets up a series of questions and the player must answer them truthfully to learn more about themselves.

The game is simple and the set of questions are unique, and if the player immerses itself in the idea of the game, it can be interesting, especially for a Free to Play title. The sound and the music for this short game was also alright.

However, I have played 'The Test' before hand and it's impossible to not compare these two together, and I feel Secrets of the Soul is a lighter version of the original. The reason is probably that this title is less uncanny or creepy than the original and it does not feel the same, and also the result in the felt a bit more overly "poetic" to me, even though I believe I can understand analogies and second meaning from a text. Finally, similarly like 'The Test', this instalment also encourage it's players to write a review with their gifted word, which most of the time going to be end up as a positive review, without telling why this game is marked as a positive, and also the game is basically made by RPGMaker, so don't expect any kind of complex gameplay behind it, where you answers to bunch of questions.

If I want to compare this game itself, it was not bad and for a free game, you can give it a shot. However if I want to compare it to 'The Test' which I have played, it's a bit lighter version of that, but still interesting to have. If you are interested in the idea, give it a go with this free game, but otherwise you can skip it.

In The Test you have to answer a set of questions honestly, in order to learn the truth about yourself in the end.

I think the idea is very good: The Test presents itself as uncanny and creepy sometimes with the set of questions and with the setting of the game, which does have an effect on the player and works well. Also, a game about learning about yourself is just a decent idea and I feel that it has a quite accurate result in the end... well at least for me.

However, if I want to be honest, The Test is very simple and can only really work if the player immerses itself into the game. Also, considering this is a RPGMaker game where you only answer yes and no questions could make the game idea vague and the presentation too simple. And about the ending of the game, like I said, what I have got in the end I felt accurate about it, but I believe if I would answer some of the questions differently, I would get an ending which would be also somewhat accurate to me. It's a fancy way to say that The Test is not a personality test, the result can be different depending on many things when you play it. Finally, the advertisement to write a comment about the word you get at the end, I felt a bit weird about it, because it does affect the game's rating because most people are going to recommend the game, even though most does not say why they liked it. It's a good strategy from the developer, even though your comment would be featured in the upcoming game(s), but I don't feel it's representative for this game.

It can give an interesting experience in the end, which can be varied. It highly depends on the player, if it can take The Test seriously. If you are interested in the idea and you don't mind the price you pay (best to get it on sale), give it a go but otherwise I would skip it if the game did not get your attention at first. I can recommend it somewhat, don't judge this game based on the ratio of the reviews.

Pretty fun puzzle game, free to play aswell. I also hate the sliding maze and the slow movement, but still a pretty cool game and idea in my opinion.