ltcodename 最近的评测

Still the ultimate Civilization on the market — and also my Civilization. It helped me survive the years of uni and always kept my imagination going, providing an escape into a world where my choices matter.

It was a bit weird when it first released. The art style was reeking of mobile games, districts lacked depth, and overall the progression felt like a step back compared to the golden standard, which was (and kind of still is) Civ V.

But now — ten years later (oh my god, how is it ten years already?) — I started a fresh campaign and was hooked immediately. I’m playing Civ V and Civ VI at the same time on different devices and can confidently say that I gravitate toward Civ VI more. With all the add-ons and new systems, there’s always something to do, something to keep an eye on.

I don’t mind the art style anymore, either. Au contraire — it actually makes me feel like I’m playing a board game. It’s a decent heir to Civ V now. I’m happy and ready to finally retire V and make a permanent switch. Most people already did, by the looks of it. I’ve been checking daily active users stats on SteamDB for the last three installments of the series for a couple of weeks now, and Civ VI consistently leads by at least a half over Civ V (but Civ V still beats Civ VII, again, by about a half).

Amazing little game. Great story and a details-rich environment that pulls you in from the very first minutes. I couldn’t stop thinking that this could easily be a first-person game set in the DREDGE universe. Definitely give it a go if you enjoy slow-burn, narrative-driven games like Firewatch. You’re traversing a finite world, watching it change, seeing characters and the surroundings evolve, and letting the atmosphere pull your strings.

I went in with minimal expectations, knowing the history of its development, but Dead Island 2 ended up being a genuinely enjoyable game. It’s not truly open world, so you don’t feel overwhelmed; it runs smooth like butter, looks great, and — most importantly — the weapons and combat are super solid. The… erm… zombie tech (?) is so cool. Unprecedented, even. You see bits of flesh coming off, exposing bones and guts, clothes tearing away, chemical and fire burns appearing, etc. Seriously, it’s an impressive bit of programming.

The story is extra generic though, to an almost uncomfortable degree. And despite the fact that the VO (at least for the character I chose; Carla) was good, I really didn’t like how chatty my protagonist is. I almost beat the story, but around 85% into the main missions I hit a wall where I had to go do some side quests to match the required level — and knowing how generic those are here, I decided to call it an end.

Overall, Dead Island 2 really lives up to the first game’s legend and definitely deserves a chance to be seen.

An interesting blend of familiar horror genre tropes. It definitely delivered a couple of solid scares and surprised me with its design choices more than once. It could have been a bit more polished, though: performance isn’t great (mostly stutters), and there are a couple of weird environment bugs here and there. The final chapter also overstays its welcome, in my opinion.

That said, I enjoyed the game a lot.

It feels like I never left the first game, but all the surrounding systems became more polished and all the loose nuts got tightened up. The charm is still very much intact, and the story grips you hard — even when it’s just a random encounter or a side quest.

That said, the game is still slow. Very slow. If you’re looking for fast dopamine here and now, Kingdom Come 2 is not the best choice. But if the vibe clicks and you have anxiety-free hours to spend being completely engulfed in the world — this is the good stuff. The best stuff.

This is still the ultimate RPG.

I barely managed to put together this provisional review, because it’s really hard to look at Expedition 33 as a product. It’s an experience — one that I’m not sure can be compared to anything else. And I’m only a handful of hours in. I’ve barely seen anything. I don’t even really know what’s going on.

But I’m so obsessed, so touched, and so inspired that I needed to express it. I find myself frantically googling the names of the devs, their backgrounds — anything that can anchor me and steady my disturbed thoughts. Things are truly, groundbreakingly different with this one. Expedition 33 feels entirely new. It’s like you’re playing a game from a different timeline, where the whole industry evolved along a different path.

Obsessed.

I’m obsessed with the devs. I’m obsessed with Charlie Cox dropping in for eight hours of recording and delivering a performance that now rivals giants like Neil Newbon and Troy Baker. I’m obsessed with that seemingly random composer who just exploded with ideas on the spot and supplied Expedition 33 with nothing short of a magical soundtrack. The deeper I dig, the less realistic all of this seems — because so many different pieces had to align for this game to become what it is. And when I think about it for too long, I get scared, in the same way I do when I try to imagine what the edge of the universe looks like.

And yeah, I’m not saying we don’t get magical moments like these in gaming anymore. I was similarly stunned during the Raphael fight in Baldur’s Gate 3, accompanied by a song sung by Raphael himself, intimidating the living ♥♥♥♥ out of me. I still get chills thinking about it. Now imagine that feeling of “♥♥♥♥, this is something else” — that brief loss of connection to reality when immersion peaks — but stretched over hours. That’s the feeling you get throughout the playthrough.

I’ll update this review with some actual reviewing at some point.

Well, it’s not the absolute worst game you can play, but man, almost every major building block of The Callisto Protocol has fundamental cracks in it.

The elephant in the room, of course, is the amount of “borrowed” Dead Space elements. I get that the creative director/creator was involved, but that’s not how a spiritual successor to a game should work. You don’t create a game (I’m exaggerating ever so slightly here) called Massive Effect with a protagonist named Lieutenant Carpenter who flies a ship called Brittany, do you? Well, that’s basically what’s going on here. I’m telling you, stomping the corpses of biophages (Callisto’s analogue to necromorphs) for ammo or health feels almost like a mockery.

Still, every entertainment industry is nothing if not an endless iteration of ideas with occasional improvements and experiments. But here’s the main problem: The Callisto Protocol brings zero creativity and is largely irrelevant to the genre from an evolutionary standpoint. And as I mentioned at the top, all the ingredients are rotten. The combat system is one of the worst in the history of gaming, the story is so generic it makes dialogues uncomfortable to listen to, enemy design is painfully boilerplate, and the horror element is weak. The voice acting is good, and the graphics are competitive, with all the ray-traced lighting and reflections — but that’s easy enough to achieve if you have the budget. You pay good actors and license a good engine. Putting together a game with a soul and a purpose, though — that’s the part money can’t buy.

I’m sure the intention was good, and I do believe Glen Schofield wanted to show the world that his creative glands are still full of good stuff, but it feels like he gave up halfway through. Large parts of the game feel deliberately half-baked. The “eh, good enough” juice seeps from every crevice, and the reviews reflect that perfectly.

Decent GRID series installment.

While I don't likr the overall direction the series has taken over the years, I can't argue that this is a good racing game. Definitely a return to form after Dirt 5 and Grid 2019, which were - there’s really no other way to say it - crap.

Speaking of crap though, there’s plenty of it here, don’t get me wrong. The game still wants to be Forza-esque with all the constant (and I mean constant) fireworks and confetti, but at least the core gameplay is solid. I quite enjoyed the story mode (also known as Season 1; there are other story-driven bits hidden behind the paywall), but I had to mute the constantly blabbing race engineer and, of course, I couldn’t bother watching those live-action bits because they’re super cringe (thankfully, skippable). Also, you need to crank the AI difficulty to at least second-to-last (Expert) level, otherwise you’ll be sailing in first place 10 seconds into the event.

The aforementioned AI is solid: they actively defend, they’re fast, but way too aggressive for the theme of the game, which is actual regulated racing. Real drivers would not be that reckless and aggressive in a professional setting.

Physics are decent, but nothing to write home about. Damage model is just detailed enough to stay immersive; bits crumble and fly off, and you have some major components that debuff you if damaged enough. Graphics are fine, but you feel that the engine is sucked dry and Codies will need to switch to something else pretty soon (and they did, to UE5 for EA WRC).

After I was done with the story that took 3-4 hours, I wanted to switch to something called a “Career” that sounded promising. Upon closer inspection, I found simple ladders that you climb from rookie to pro, competing in different classes - which is what you expect from a GRID game - but I was immediately put off by the fact that this mode is built as a multiplayer thing from the ground up, and while you can compete solo with AI, you still need to deal with countdowns in the lobby and you can’t restart a race because it’s “online.” Even when it’s not. It’s dumb, and I abandoned it.

I wishlisted a couple of story DLCs (seasons) that appealed to me and will consider returning to play them if I manage to buy them on sale, but committing to the game in any other manner seems pointless.

Look how they massacred my boy!

They Ubisofted him up. This is not the game Mirror's Edge needed to evolve into. We wouldn’t take Super Meat Boy and turn it into an RTS, would we? Mirror’s Edge was about traversing a hand-crafted level, being immersed in the excellent sound design (Faith’s laboured breathing specifically), running from gunshots that were about to pierce you. It was about frantically searching for a vent duct in utter panic because an armed soldier was about to turn the corner and obliterate you.

And Catalyst feels like a hastily put-together Watch Dogs game with a Fast & Furious plot.