Recent reviews by JTheJackal

Nice little turn based strategy with interesting mechanics and amusing dialogue.

Fantastic single player campaign that does a great job of taking elements that made the old games great and bringing them into our extra shiny generation.

There are a million and one reviews on this game so I'll keep it brief.

Fallout 4 has plenty of flaws but is still a fantastic game well worth picking up. It provides many, many memorable experiences, some intentionally and some not.

Definitely recommended.

Likes:

A focus on vehicle combat. The cars have a good amount of weight to keep you engaged but simple enough to control to keep the focus on the action. Car chases, escapes and convoys are definitely the highlights of the game providing lots of exciting moments.

The world is huge and captures the feel of the Mad Max universe very well. It's also very detailed with endless amounts of places to explore, some large and some small, each of which feel unique and carefully made.

Loads to upgrade, from Max to the car to the strongholds. A lot of the upgrading for the car isn't linear progression either, as choices need to be made to decide between speed and strength.

Most of the characters are interesting, especially your sidekick who is probably one of my favourites from a videogame.

The visuals are great, managing to make a barren wasteland actually quite picturesque. The weather effects add to this, looking great while providing lots of interesting moments.

A massive amount of things to do, even if you're not a completionist.

Capture mode: the serial screenshotter's dream tool.

This has been said to death by others but the optimisation of Mad Max really does raise the standards and should be noted in every review.

Dislikes:

At the moment there are bugs here and there, particularly towards the end of the game. I haven't come across any game breaking ones but there are annoyances.

Balloons; Mad Max's version of Ubisoft's radio tower obsession. They're not particularly interesting and frustratingly slow to use. Having a tricky driving section up a tall hill or something could have been much more fun.

The fighting, while decent, barely evolves throughout the entire length of the game but takes up a big part of it. It's not bad, it just becomes "something you have to do" by the time you get to the end of the game so it feels like a missed opportunity.

Bosses and Top Dogs are all identical with their move set which I feel was, again, a big missed opportunity.

Signposting isn't particularly good in some places while being excessive in others. For instance, it doesn't tell you your severe scrap shortage can be alleviated by building certain projects, but it will highlight "secret" entrances and access points in big yellow paint.


Conclusion:

I'd definitely recommend it; I don't play many games until completion these days but I had a blast with this. You'll especially appreciate it if you have any interest in the Mad Max movies or even muscle cars, rat rods or vehicular combat.

It has it's flaws here and there, and some people may feel like exploration doesn't reward enough but I feel the strengths of the pros heavily outweigh the cons.

Really bad survival game.

The terrain deformation, while cool, was completely ignored when making the game as all the resources are placed above ground meaning you have no reason to use the only interesting feature the game has. It's like they made a cool tech demo, realised how popular survival games were getting and decided to build a poor one on top of it.

There's no reason to explore too far from the starting area as new biomes offer nothing new, just the same resource spires with a new texture and a different enemy type.

There's not much point in explaining all the other flaws, it would be like criticising blemishes on a turd.

Campaign review:

Mostly by-the-numbers Call of Duty campaign where you're taken on a linear, "roller coaster" and shown lots of whizz and bang without much interaction.

Some of the levels showed promise by allowing you to flank enemies and walk in more than one direction, but these innovative mechanics are short lived as you're taken back to the fun of pressing F to watch a bomb being planted, pressing F to watch an enemy being stabbed or pressing F to watch a door being opened.

Promise is shown further still as a lot of the levels revolve around the idea of stealthy infiltration, but again you're shackled by the game and end up watching most of what's happening which is a huge shame as some of the areas and scenarios could have been really fun.

The plot isn't actually bad, and the loading screen animations are quite nice to watch so following the story is easy. Unfortunately, they make you watch this fairly lengthy loading screen every time you change something in the graphics settings (They may have changed this in the latest patch).

Infamously poor optimisation, 'though not as bad as it was around release period. I also came across lots of odd behaviour from characters such as enemy deep sea divers doing the backwards swim animation but coming towards me extremely fast while shooting (Hilarious but also terrifying). Really, really poor texture work in places too.

I'd pick it up in the winter sale if it falls below the £5 mark but ultimately can't recommend it as it never allows you to have the fun it dangles in front of you.

The Dark Souls of racing games. Rally simulation that's very difficult, very rewarding and what I'd consider to be one of the best racing games I've played, even though it's still in early access.

A return to form for Codemasters after years of Gymkhana, Ken Block and hand holding "like, totally awesome" nonsense.

Patience, or at least obsessive determination, is definitely required.

Still an amazing game, well worth buying. Also, everyone should experience the Brutal Doom mod.

One of my favourite games in a while. Beautiful visuals, good music, interesting world, intruiging characters and a great story.

Would recommend to anyone.

I don't often play games from start to finish anymore due to either my short attention span or the game in question being crap, but Tomb Raider was very enjoyable.

Pros:

Great atmosphere to every area.
Gorgeous world with nice weather and effects.
Interesting story and characters.
Weapons and combat feels good, usually with multiple approaches.
Decent puzzles.
Lots of old school moments.
Lots to explore and collect.
Distracting hair physics with TressFX.

Cons:

Not enough of the old Tomb Raider run-y jump-y dive-y action, but that's my taste.
"Suck your thumb" health system.
QTE heavy.
Over-reliance on some mechanics i.e. lighting fires and rock climbing.
Felt too on-rails at times.
Distracting hair physics with TressFX.
The deer scared the hell out of me.