Recent reviews by Chabs

An impressive VR title I finally got around playing.
If you've ever seen clips of it on YouTube, it's really as fun as it looks!

Right now, the game only has an arena mode and a rogue-like dungeon mode, with a variety of environments. There's an upcoming story mode with actual progression, which will honestly make this a truly one of a kind experience.
The gameplay is so damn crisp, the fighting, movement... It's hard to describe but you feel like you're there.

Blade and Sorcery is a MUST have if you got a VR headset. It may only be in EA (as of typing this), but it'll certainly keep you entertained for long. Plus, there's MODS!

Note: A "giga" update is supposed to hit this fall, so contents of this review may become outdated.

The closest game I can think of while playing Zero Caliber VR is Rainbow Six Vegas 2.
In that game, the A.I. was "meh", environments and story were "eh", gameplay was pretty basic, but the customization was out of this world for its time: you could edit your character's outfit, their armor, the camo, your guns... Despite it being a very short game, I poured hundreds of hours on the 360 leveling and unlocking everything, and it was somehow FUN.

Zero Caliber VR kinda has that spirit:

• The A.I. behaves basically like in an on-rails arcade shooter, and is constantly in a "bum-rush" mode.
  
• The environments are pretty ugly, let's be honest. It looks just like a 2000s game, if not worse.
  
• The story is just a pretext.
  
• The gameplay in VR is pretty enjoyable! Some minor annoyances when trying to grip/aim your gun, but pretty fun otherwise.
  
• Customization is limited but seamless and fun to engage in! It's showing a LOT of potential.

There is a progression system, albeit very barebones.
You earn XP for completing missions (not exactly sure how it's calculated). But I can't help but think that a more robust and varied progression system (with "classes", specific feats to perform, playstyles, etc...) would tremendously benefit this game. It would give you a reason to explore, try different things, and just enjoy the game for longer despite the pretty bland loop.

The tools are there, the shooting feels great, you can climb literally anywhere (love it), but they're barely exploited. It's okay for enemies to be braindead, but only if the loop is fun and engaging.

I'm giving this a thumbs down for now because I can't quite recommend it in this state. Can't deny I had some fun, but it's still very lackluster.
Once the updates hit, I will update accordingly.

Loved it.

Gameplay's pretty basic, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ do I love the atmosphere.
It's short and kinda bittersweet.

Get it for the experience, because it's 100% worth it.

In a nutshell: Gameplay's kinda meh, story's nothing to write home about, characters are somewhat interesting, but the world is beautiful and fascinating. That alone is well worth diving into.

The visuals and "history lesson" were 99% the appeal for me.

The game's honestly really stunning, largely thanks to great use of lighting and of course the stunning vistas. The world, despite the fact that you rarely engage with it, feels very alive.
Cities, villages, farmlands, temples... There was a lot of effort and dedication to making this vision of Ancient Egypt feel real.

It also gets you greatly invested in learning the Ancient Egyptian history.
It features virtual tours which features many 5-10 min. long audiologues about Ancient Egypt. This is honestly a thing of GENIUS. I love the game just for that alone.

The game is pretty damn enjoyable despite its flaws. It may sound kind of funny, but if that's the future of AC, I'm honestly ok with it... But improved gameplay would certainly help!

An absolutely amazing pure co-op game you'll certainly enjoy with your significant other... Or the homie you kiss good night

Controls are really messed up. It's just not fun flying around like you're high on spice.
Tried different things: keyboard&mouse, controller... None of the settings provided by the game feel right, and I honestly don't want to waste any more of my time to figure out what works.

Apart from that, of the 1h+ that I played, it was easy to see that the singleplayer of this game is very shallow. So if you're interested in the single player alone, wait for a heavy discount first because it won't really be worth your money. Besides, MP might very well be dead at this point.

20/02/2023 Update:
Well, here we are... An extra 76 hours of gameplay, and a whole year after release.

You no longer need a PhD to buy the game: IO has finally streamlined Hitman 3.
It is now "Hitman World of Assassination", and combines all previous games. There's also a couple of extra "DLCs" but they aren't really worth it, besides the "upgrade" to Hitman 2 which adds 2 new levels. Although I don't really like the fact that it's not packaged in by default, since they came with the original for free...

Another major addition is the "Freelancer" gamemode, a sort of rogue-like spin to Hitman. Honestly? It's great, I'm having loads of fun!
It adds HUGE replayability, allowing you to experiment more and try things you've never really done in the base-game... I really love it. There's no story or anything however, it's just pure Hitman.

In other news, but you probably know that by now, VR still sucks.
Tried it once, hated it. The controls are iffy, it's unresponsive. You think it's going to be awesome, but it's just a massive letdown.

Anyways, I'm amending my review becomes I really think that its improved.

Original review:
I was a bit conflicted at first, but my mind is set.

Is Hitman 3 worth it? No, especially not at its release price.
Is the Hitman trilogy worth it? Absolutely, but grab everything at a discount. 50-60$ for everything would be worth it IMO.

Hitman 3 by itself brings almost nothing to the table. Hitman 2's improvements were tangible. Hitman 3's not so much.

There are a couple of nice levels, like Germany or China. They all feel unique and fun to explore. The sound design is on point, as always. But the rest of the levels are NOTHING compared to previous entries. They're just "ok".

Replayability has also taken somewhat of a hit, as each mission has less "stories" (3 on average). As a result, missions feel linear for the most part, despite them taking place in open environments (except the last).

One irredeemable point: The always online bs, again. It's unnecessary, it's dumb and it's distracting at times. If you've got an unstable internet connection, have fun getting your experience interrupted every now and then.

Overall, the game seems to have borrowed a bit from Absolution, particularly the linearity. But thankfully the experience was not as bad and cringy.

Just to be clear, I'm enjoying Hitman. But that's because the formula was already released previously, it worked and it still works. This is just like a piece of DLC, a 60$ piece of DLC.
There's some amount of content which they're planning to release, such as a rogue-like Hitman experience. That could be really, really fun, but I'll hold my excitement.
Also, I haven't tried the VR part, so I've got nothing to say about this.

Wait for a discount on this one.

A faithful Ace Combat rendition. Fun in both short and long doses.
There's a decent variety of aircrafts, but it's very much geared towards fighters.

If you liked Ace Combat and are looking for more arcade air combat games, jump in without hesitation.
If not but are still curious about such games, you should definitely give it a try.

An innovative game with interesting themes, original setting and surprisingly fun gameplay, but absolute garbage writing.

If you're no fan of running/walking/driving around and prefer action oriented games, this won't be for you.
95% of the game is spent picking up and dropping off things across a pretty big map. But the thing is: it does walking around to perfection. No game has ever done traversal so well. Weight management, weather effects, terrain, fatigue... The game just makes it very fun to run for kilometres.

On top of that, the game uses a very interesting type of cooperation mechanic: you can find structures built by others to help access difficult terrain or assist in various ways (battery recharge, souls-style markers, shelters...). And so can you for others. The game really emphasises this mechanic, and it's honestly a thing of beauty to see it in action.

One other thing I'd like to point out is that this game is neat as ♥♥♥♥. The UI looks very damn good, it's super functional, the mechanics are pretty snappy.
The only thing I'm not a fan of is driving, specifically in rough terrain and hills. For a game centered around this, it's a sin G

My major gripe with this game, is the story, or rather its writing and the way it is acted.
It's honestly very bad. Even worse than most Kojima games...
The plot is vague, cutscenes last for ages, and there's way way wayyyy too much exposition all the time. It's like you're playing part 2, but there's never been a part 1.
Characters are lifeless, and dialogues are extremely dull, cringy at times... I could go on and on, but all in all the whole narrative aspect is just dog doodoo.

It's a shame really. The world and its lore are really original and interesting otherwise.
But the rest of the experience is still very much worth it IMO.

Fallen Order is sort of a "plastic" kind of game.

I don't mean that it's a bad game, Not at all. It's very enjoyable in fact.

What I mean is that it's a textbook "AAA, big studio, big franchise" game.
It's a game that plays it very, and I mean veeeeery safe.

It's very cinematic and beautiful. Plays like a movie in fact. And besides fairly elaborate gameplay (combat) and some collectables here and there, it's very linear and uncomplicated.
The storyline is akin to the Star Wars movies of old: It's black or white, and the characters are extremely uncomplicated. They're just typical SW archetypes, but they're still really likable.

Again, it's not a bad game. It's just a somewhat simple, linear game with pretty cinematography. What you'd expect from a Disney feat. EA production really. Make of that what you will.