Recent reviews by Reformed Restroom

RUMU is a great example of what I call an "art game": A shorter (I left the game open while I was at work, so I'm unsure of exactly how long, but I imagine no more than 4 hours long) game, with a focus on telling a specific story very well, with mechanics and art honed to a fine point. The story of Rumu, a small AI designed to clean messes and love, hooked my attention and kept it, up until the end.

Mechanically, the game handles very well, though I would say that the rewiring minigame could use some more explanation. Rumu handles very well in game, however, and the controls are simple enough to make anyone feel at least proficient in driving Rumu around.

Story-wise, I have no complaints. The only time I felt I disliked what was happening in the story was over, and I wanted more.

If you're into games like The Magic Circle, The Stanley Parable (just got my "Go Outside" achievement, go check your's!), or The Beginner's Guide, this is a must-play. If you're interested in something exploring concepts of AI, love, and vacuuming the same mess 99 times in a row for an achievement, this is the game for you!

Not terribly long, but worth whatever sale price you find it at!

I liked Agents of Mayhem. It was weird, had a lot of enjoyable characters, and combat was usually enjoyable. I never felt unduly stuck at any point, and I would play it again. I would consider calling it a good game, even. I don't think I could go above that, though.

Mafia 3 kinda sucks.

As much as I want to enjoy it, Mafia 3 fails to provide, in some really serious areas. It's glitchy, the controls feel over-crowded on keyboard while the controller fails when it comes to an actual shoot out, and missions quickly become repetitive. But, these are all things I could get through. I juggle controller and keyboard in a lot of games, I can usually fix any glitches I come across, and I know how to keep myself invested through a grind, from my old WoW days. I can do all of that, IF THE STORY MISSIONS KEEP MY ATTENTION. If I want to know what happens next. Unfortunately, the sin I cannot ignore in Mafia 3 is that, honest to god, it feels like they forgot to include the story missions in the game. Even when you have something one could consider a story missions, it's never substantially different than anything else you're doing in the game. Break into fortified building filled with guards. Sneakily kill bad guys, or kill them all in a hail of gunfire. Maybe, MAYBE drive after a guy for a bit. But it's all stuff you already did, in the same environments, with nothing that, outside of being told the guy you're killing is important, would differentiate it from any other mission for taking over a district. Story missions, which, in a game like this, should be highlights, feel like any other drivel you're doing the rest of the time. And that cannot happen, in a game like this, if you're going to have any hope of finishing it. There is a saving grace, however, that helped me to scramble together, across around 2 tries to play through this game, over a hundred hours: DLC. The content you get from the DLCs of this game are fun, interesting conflicts and mechanics, that, if successfully integrated into the main plot, would have made this game beatable. Add some of the vehicular destruction of Klan rallies from the "Faster, Baby!" DLC into a main plot, or spend some time gathering intel with the recon camera and blacklight from "Sign of the Times" to helping you take over a district. Even the simple shift from "In the city" to "in the jungle" for the latter half of the "Stones Unturned" DLC helped me get some relief from working over block after city block of New Bordeaux. These missions felt unique, like something new was happening. I get that, thematically, Lincoln is obsessed and single-minded in his hunt, but I am not so broken over the deaths he's seen that I am also mentally unhinged. I need something to keep me hooked. And while the DLC can do that for a while, you'll find yourself dreading going back to main game content at the end of one, and have to force yourself to take over yet ANOTHER district of the town, fighting the same mooks who all do roughly the same things. Shoot this crate, steal this truck, interrogate this informant. Over, and over, and over, and over again, until the idea of driving all the way across the map to do so no longer feels worth the effort to even drive there. Even for story missions. And that's why I give this game a thumbs down, despite my long playtime. I just can't convince myself to even finish this game, it's just such a drag.

If you're still interested in playing, some hot tips:

Get the DLCs. If you can only get 1, get Faster Baby, which gets you a great car, a fast and durable sports truck, and the Herbalism money maker, which I strongly suggest completing. By the time I had to quit (6/9 districts completed, maxed out Herbalism) I was making 4 times more money from a batch of herbs than I was from my kickbacks. Hold off on completing the last Faster, Baby missions, where you head back into the Parish after the arrest, for when you go back into the Parish for new strains. No need to waste a trip.

This is one of those games where stealth is broken. I killed more guys in this game by whistling from behind a box and taking him out than I did with guns. You can clear out 85% of enemy bases this way, to really no negatives, other than maybe taking a little while longer. Once you start the Sign of the TImes missions, you get the throwing knives. They're just ranged instant take-downs, that you can use again, as long as you hit. Abuse them as much as you like, the game's basically done once you get those.

There might be a morality system in this game. Emphasis on the MIGHT. I've spent a while looking it up, and I have yet to find any solid proof that there is one. The "hardest" evidence that there might be one that I've found is a section on TV Tropes, but no evidence elsewhere that explains what it is, or how it affects the game. So, be lethal at your own discretion. Even though the game just decides for you, sometimes.

I wish I had more to say. This game is just not interesting enough to keep me hooked, even though I tried very hard to stay invested.

First Run: 54 hours, 3/9 districts controlled, all DLCs completed.
Second Run: 54 hours (apparently the point at which you grow tired of this game enough to quit) 6/9 Districts Completed, Stone Unturned and Faster, Baby! DLCs completed

Subnautica is one of my most played games, of all time. A wonderful environment and art style, combined with solid exploration and crafting mechanics, topped off with a sparse but solid enough story to keep you involved makes for a highly recommended gaming experience~ Survive and thrive on an alien planet, kept from leaving by a deadly infection an an alien quarantine system that shoots any ship it sees out of the skies, you must plumb to the core of the watery world to find the source of the infection, the cure, and a means of escape.

Dishonored is a great game! Tons of different paths to take to do what you must, a wonderfully atmospheric universe, and an interesting take on dark magic! I whole-heartedly recommend it.

After playing this game for about 6 hours, I cannot reccomend it. It's a confused mishmash of what feels like about 3 different games, which the developers pushed together into one game, without bothering to make things mesh. This stands out the most in how the game (doesn't) work, mechanically.

After a passable shooting tutorial, the game appears to want you to play this as a stealth game: it has an indicator for when you have been detected, it introduces a mechanic for firing when something loud happens in the background to cover the sound of firing (to the point that there is an on-screen indicator that takes up about a 16th of the screen letting you know when such times would be), and the ability to tag enemies with the binoculars to see on the minimap where they are, and which way they are facing. However, it doesn't manage to make this doable. The fire covering sounds do not happen nearly often enough to be usable outside of very specific areas, enemies ability to detect you is better than your ability to decipher their location, and extremely scarce supply of silenced weapons (1 low-damage pistol in 6 hours of play) make this playstyle incredibly difficult, even on the Casual difficulty.

What the game does give you in abundance, I learned quickly, was sniper rifles. So, after giving up on a stealth approch, I tried playing this game as a sniper. With the abundance of scoped weapons, there's also a few areas with good sniping perches, and a bullet cam that occasionally shows up, I thought maybe that's what I was supposed to do. But the game fails to deliver on that front, as well. Outside of a few very specific areas, sniping is a no-go: A lot of areas are very enclosed, with no high-places to use for sniping, and the cluttered-feeling maps coated in non-destructible and often misleadingly see-through cover means trying to play as a sniper fails as well. The worst offenders on poor map construction for playing a sniper are maps that seem ideal: a number of areas had large, open fields. WHile not ideal, it would seem better for a sniper than the cluttered areas. However, the areas where enemies are are almost like carved-in divots in the landscape, with lowered areas with buildings and enemies, which cannot be fired into from any distance. It's almost like the game's enemies are building specifically to counter snipers, which is frustrating, though worth a chuckle, as such a move did seriously improve their ability to survive.

After hours of trying these routes, I decided to try a guns-blazing, Rambo-style tactic: run in with the game's somewhat plentiful grenades, and the healthy submachines I found. This contrasts with the game's narritive, of being a WWII newspaper journalist turned French Resistance fighter, but I thought I would try anyways. This did not work either, however. Enemies, while not particularly hard to murder individually, do large amounts of damage, and are prone to using cover far too often to make this viable. Frankly, the AI was just too smart for such a playstyle. On top of that, the game's grenades are garbage. They take far to long to throw, and have a pitiful area of effect.

It was at this point that I stopped. The game feels like it's trying to get you to try each of these options, but it feels like the enemies are built to counter each of these playstyles, discouraging them all, which just left me frustrated. On top of all of the already mentioned issues, the game has numerous technical issues and oversights. These ranged from about 1/3 of the NPCs had oddly glowing hands, to enemies triggering on very obvious doorways, leading to going from dead silence to a full fire fight with no warning. Enemies blend in incredibly well with the rather loud and cluttered maps, making them hard to see, and despite showing that certain types of cover is destructible, it very frequently has flimsy looking pieces of wood functioning like they're made of a foot of concrete. The absolute wost "mechanic" in this game involves the game's incredibly plentiful ammo crates: Every time an ammo crate comes on screen, a dramatic and distracting flare of light eats up the screen, blinding you for a moment. Not just some of them, not just on the first time you see them: if a crate goes off screen, for even a second, it's like you got hit by a flashbang when you look back towards it.

This game is bad. It really feels like 2-3 different teams were making their own games, and then, at the last minute, all of the games got thrown into a blender, and poured into one game. Mechanics contradict in frustrating combat, enemies seem like they're programmed to make any playstyle nigh impossible, and the game just feels confused. Just like I am.

I enjoy the Overlord series. A mix of high fantasy and parody that's only a few pedophilic steps shy of Xanth, you play as the titular Overlord, an evil master of a swarm of multi-colored minions, who sweep across a fantasy world, sewing death and destruction in your wake. You control your Overlord and your minions simulatinously, walking across the battlefield, slinging spells and swinging your weapon of choice, while your minions fill a cannon fodder role, exactly as willing to run into the heart of an impossible fight for you, as they are to put anything and everything they can find upon their heads.

In Overlord 2, you take the place of the son of the last Overlord, and rain hell down upon the Solariun Empire, a Roman-esque empire that has built itself upon the ashes of the conquered world of Overlord 1. With plenty of new mechanics, including mounts for minions and a psuedo-alignment system, the game is a solid improvement over the last game. If this premise sounds enjoyable to you, you will likely get a kick out of this game...

But a very frustrating kick.

The game lacks for adaquate instructions often, leading to the occasional moments of frustration, as the game gives vague or sometimes entirtely unrelated pieces of advice, leaving you hanging, scratching your head, and forced to look up instructions on what to do, to progress. Some semi-spoilery tips, that the game refuses to tell you, that any players should know:

1: Nordberg cannot be completely conquered until you retrieve all 4 types of minions, so do not worry if you're sitting at 70 or so when you first get the quest, and are left scratching your head. Just keep playing. Same goes for Everlight City, though in that one, you have to wait for a quest.

2: If you cannot find the last 1 or 2 citizens in a city, wander around, firing your Evil Presence spell: it causes free citizens to begin screaming and running, helping make them stand out from already conquered citizens.

3: When escaping the temple, on the third spider run, the third button cannot be hit directly. Try going around the obstacle. You do have enough time, even if it does not seem like it.

4: When fighting the salamander boss, and you cannot figure out how to progress as he rolls back and forth: the ramp he jumps off of can be attacked by your blues from the water. It's not marked as such, but can be targeted.

5: When fighting the final stage of the final boss, if you find targetting the head node difficult, leave some Reds on a banner upon the ledge you entered the fight on. They'll automatically hit it when it becomes available.

All of the obstacles, and many others like them, could be explained, in-game, by simple hints, which the head Minion Gnarl is oft heard to shout, but the game just doesn't do so.

The game does have several other issues, including a frankly garbage targetting system that often targets scenery in the middle of battle, glitchy pathing on your minions that can leave you missing several minions and causing you to retrace your steps to find them and keep going, and visual cues on spells that are either too small to reliably see, or are just non-existant. And when what you're targetting and how long you're casting spells for can mean the difference between continuing your play through, or restarting to your last save, such issues can leave you with a sour taste in your mouth.

Despite these issues, however, I recommend this game. Fights are enjoyable, and many area-specific mechanics are quite fun. Getting your minions drunk is always a hoot, and, when you're not stuck on something that a single visual cue or something similar could make clear, you do feel like a powerful Overlord. Just know you are going to get frustrated. Often.

This game has numerous issues. The controls are garbage, the intro cut scene drags on for ages. The maps are incredibly linear, exemplified by the minimap. Combat is seemingly repetitive, as you use a total of 10 different abilities, including the ability to use your weapon and dodge. The story is about as bland as they come, as far as I have gotten (Stonebridge, dealt with the mines, working on Miesters), and the characters all feel very one dimensional. THere's strong hints to a moral system, and "influencing" your single companion you can have at once is implied to do something, but, so far, I can't tell if they have any effects at all. There's little to no explanation of how your stats and abilities interact, so I just end up using whatever item is at the top of the list. The camera, which comes with two angles (niether of which are good), is always too close, meaning enemies will aggro from off screen, and you often won't see what your character is shooting for, with a ranged attack. And don't get me started on the targeting system. It's a joke.

And you know what? I love it. I am having a blast. It's humour is just quirky enough, it's monsters just interesting enough to keep me playing. I have no idea what I'm doing half the time, and I've had to rebind every ability I have so many times I often lose track, but it's just an enjoyable experience. It feels almost like an homage to games like Dragon Age, or Diablo, and a fun one at that. A guilty pleasure, through and through.

Do I think you, the reader, will like it? No clue. Is it mechanically perfect? Hardly. But I love it.

If you are thinking of playing, I have some rebinding advice:

Ignore the click to move. It worked well in 1, but with no pause, and only 2 characters, using WASD to move works infinitely better. Bind left click to your primary attack, and right click to your first ability. Make E your heal, but keep the second armors on 4 and 5. Make your secondary ability another button on your mouse, like a thumb button. Map your third ability to shift, and the weapon swap on Q. Keep the quest helper on C, and rebind your character menu to tab. Move the secondary menus, like quests and inventory to buttons near O and P, as you don't often need access to them directly. Hammer dodge frequently, as it often is the fastest form of movement. YOu'll get all of abilities pretty quick, so don't worry a whole lot about order of purchase

* SPOILERS *

This is what I imagine when I think Wolfenstein: BJ Blazkowitz driving a giant mecha through a magical earthquake stuck town, filled with fire and machine gun toting nazi zombies that fall from the sky. Like, this jumps every single shark possible, half-way through. Things just go insane. And it is a blast. Just buy it, especially if you like the rebooted Wolfenstein, but wanna try a slightly more insane take on the concept.