Reviews

To start, I'll just say that graphics, audio, and overall immersion was absolutely incredible with this game.  I wish every action game could be made with that sweet Frostbite engine.

The story was very interesting.  I'm not very knowledgeable about the events that took place in WWI (I've always been more interested in WWII), but I can only assume that most of these events were based on actual people and battles that happened during "The Great War".  Although each story was extremely short, especially if you just sprint through the entirety, the short time we got to know these characters and the acts of heroism and valor they performed was good enough to make me like them and sad when they died.

The campaign AI and sneaking is very iffy.  Just get really good at mad dashing towards people and melee them to death.  The enemy NPCs have the wonderful "truesight" where, no matter what kind of noise you make, will attract them straight to you.  Even if you throw a grenade 25 yards away, they know where it originated from!

I didn't play the multiplayer because I already know what that's like.  I've played every BF game before this one like a crack addict and so I didn't want to return down that path haha!

If you're a fan of the Battlefield series or WWI, I highly recommend checking this out.

Darksiders 2 takes the formula established in 1 and adds in an RPG progression system. There are two skill trees, one for “casters” and one for “melee”, but in practice both involve plenty of melee hack-and-slash combat. There’s now also a full loot system, with armor pieces, weapons, and trinkets. Some have unique effects, but most are randomized. The combat itself seamlessly integrates skills into the hack-and-slash gameplay. Death, with his signature scythes, is faster and has more combo potential, but there’s also slower, heavier hitting weapons to play with.

The story takes place immediately before Darksiders 1. It takes Death beyond Earth to some truly spectacular fantasy-style worlds, and is also a good bit longer. The environments and world are a step above the first game, and there’s a cast of characters you meet along the way.

The main dungeons are great, with almost identical dungeon treasures to Darksiders 1. Puzzle design is good, and there’s loads of optional dungeons and puzzles to explore.

The remaster is purely visual. Controls have been left untouched and most bugs are still in the game. For the most part, this isn’t an issue, but, just like Darksiders 1, the camera and aim sensitivity is all over the place. I had to mess with steam’s controller API for a bit to get aiming and camera controls to an acceptable place.

When Guild Wars 2 released back in 2012, the MMO landscape was dominated by World of Warcraft. WoW set the status quo for MMO's: grind (and grind some more) for levels and better gear score, subscribe for $10 a month, play an unremarkable story, get loads of questionably useful skills and talents, ruin your character by applying skillpoints incorrectly, and pay for yearly expacs. Power creep was rampant in the genre, and everything seemed to develop into "lifestyle games" that you couldn't take a break from without falling behind the rest of the players who had more time to play than you. 

Guild Wars 2 defied (and still does defy) these seemingly set in stone genre conventions. It had a "pay once" model without any subscription fees (it is now free-to-play). It had an involved, fully voiced story tailored to your character. It had a continuing story told in seasons of Living World content. It had a focused, directed skill and trait system that left you with 10 skills and three specializations. It had an intelligent scaled leveling system that reduced your level depending on the zone, allowing you to play with lower level players. It had content that was worth doing at any level. It had massive 100+ person world bosses. It had balanced PvP that put all players on an even playing field by giving them access to all the same skills and equipment. It had a marginal (5%) gap between easily acquired Exotic Gear and more difficult to acquire Ascended Gear (which is STILL the best gear in the game 8 years later). You could fully change your character's build at any time. It had massive hundred person World vs World Vs World battles. 

Guild War 2 was a better game for lowering the gap between casual players and hardcore "lifestyle" players. It was a better game because it was fun first, and grindy second. You played because it was fun, not because you were constantly trying to keep up with your competition.

And the game only got better. Heart of Thorns added in new Elite Specializations that gave each class access to a new weapon type and dramatically changed its playstyle. Guardians got bows, Necromancers got greatswords, and more. They also added raids, which, if it weren't for some pretentious groups in the community, would be very fun to drop into. The new maps they added were hit or miss, but they required a level of coordination between as many as 150 players that is still a sight to behold to this day.

Path of Fire added what may be the best implementation of mounts ever seen in an MMO. You transition from walking to mounts seamlessly, and each mount has a specific mechanical purpose used for traversing the world in a new way. Group content only got tighter and more enjoyable, however it required significantly less coordination than Heart of Thorns maps. 

I don't expect GW2 to be genre defining, but I wish it were. It's not perfect by any means, but it's still a positive direction for MMO's. It takes what made the genre great and embraces it, while minimizing the impact of what makes the genre inaccessible and tedious. 

Back on its release, Darksiders 1 was described by many as “Legend of Zelda meets God of War.” They weren’t wrong, and the Darksiders series continues to be a blend of other genres with metroidvanias.

The Darksiders games follow the story of the four horsemen of the apocalypse: War, Death, Fury, and Strife. The artistic design is the brainchild of Joe Madureira, comic book artist of Uncanny X-men and Battlechasers. This distinct art-style is the icing on the cake for the hack-and-slash gameplay.

Darksiders 1 is the most Zelda-like of all four titles. There are classic dungeons, classic unlockable items that allow for additional exploration, and tons of areas you can backtrack to in order to unlock health and mana upgrades. Customization is minimal. You always use War’s sword Chaoseater, but have the option of using a Scythe or Gauntlets as your secondary weapon. You also have a few activated abilities you can take advantage of. You do have the ability to change what “enhancement” is attached to each weapon, but the impact they have is pretty minimal. Combat gets repetitive, but it’s balanced nicely with exploration, puzzles, and scripted action sequences.

Some elements of progression are annoying, like leveling-up your weapons. As you kill enemies, your weapons gain miniscule amounts of experience and become more powerful. The main issue is that only the weapon that deals the killing blow gets any experience.

In the remaster, the controls have been mostly untouched. This is simultaneously a good thing (the combat controls in the original were tight) and a bad thing (the aiming in the original was way way too sensitive). Fortunately, it hooks right into Steam’s controller API that allows you complete control over inputs and layouts. I had a few crashes while playing the remaster, but mostly my experiences were positive. Graphics look great.

For a free game, Path of Exile delivers in spades. It has tons of build variety, a cool skill tree, an interesting "your skills are socketable gems" system, and some interesting Unique/Legendary equipment. Up to level 80-90, through the main campaign, through many of the maps, and in much of the end-game content, it's an exceedingly well done Diablo clone.

Then it gets really bad. Your damage falls off really hard with no clear avenues for improvement. Your survivability becomes nonexistent with, again, no clear ways to fix it (getting one-shot by offscreen monsters is a regular occurrence at level 80+). The game becomes balanced around "best-in-slot" gear for only the most meta builds, creating an unenjoyable power creep for casual players. The only fix for this is to look up a build guide, invest a bunch of currency in respeccing and acquiring hyper-specific gear, then completely dominating the game for no apparent reason. For those not intimately familiar with Path of Exile's specific mechanics, there's not much chance for you to make it to the highest tiers of content on your own.

Then there's the paymodel. The game and all it's content is free. You have to pay for extra stash space. The starting stash space is woefully inadequate, with absolutely no way for you to effectively participate in trading, or even effectively store your currency. To get the minimum tabs to get started, it would likely cost $10. I consider this the price of the game. Apart from tabs, there's a host of cosmetics. There's no other gameplay affecting microtransactions.

The economy in Path of Exile is completely and utterly ♥♥♥♥♥♥ beyond repair (in Standard League). This is a real shame, because their barter-style economy had the potential to be extremely effective. Each currency item can be used to upgrade and modify items, in addition to being traded between players. These money sinks aren't enough, however, and end-game farmers make everything good prohibitively expensive for casual players. This is an inevitability for this type of game.

For all it's shortcomings, PoE still provides enough fun to play, but it has no clear avenues for progression at high level end-game content. Unique/Legendary items are trivialized by increasingly powerful Rare equipment, and only certain builds can participate in all the end-game content PoE has to offer. You'll frequently be asking yourself "What am I doing wrong?" when you die repeatedly.

How to fix the game, in order of importance:
1. Make changing your build easier. The puzzle of finding something that works is only enjoyable when you aren't heavily punished for finding a wrong answer.
2. Either remove one-shot mechanics entirely or increase visual clarity. Also, zoom out the camera so you can actually see the monsters that attack you at a range.
3. Provide every player with a currency stash tab.
4. Make every unique have a level 70 variant. Having the coolest effects stuck on the worst equipment severely limits build variety. This might help make Unique items worth using again.
5. Add in damage numbers, death recaps, or anything that makes it easier to determine if you're doing things right.. Most of your build choices are pure guesswork, especially if you're a minion build.
6. Add in more currency sinks to help fix the economy, or limits on the amount of currency that can be acquired quickly.