Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

@RogerRoger I'm hoping for more than 30, but I've learned before that setting my sights too high is a fine recipe for disappointment! Playing through some of these random Steam games will help make that more achieveable, though. I'm trying to veer away a bit from the 80-hour epics I tend to gravitate toward.

RE: Wizorb - It's too long in some ways (I don't really want to just sit around and play 12 levels + a boss fight in a single go), and not big enough. If they'd added more story to it (it really is rudimentary), spiced up the town-building element a bit, split the chapters in half (so, double the number of chapters at half the length), and then added some sort of 'arcade/endless/whatever' mode, or even post-game content, it would have been really good. As is, it feels like a shell of a full experience. Which sounds scathing, I'm aware, but what's there really is fun. But it needs more.

Now that I'm onto it, they should have added unlockable magic spells as well. Skill trees would have been cool, too, to personalize your playstyle over the course of the game.

With that said, it gets away with its averageness because there just aren't a ton of games like it out there. Most indie developers would rather design the millionth Metroidvania or rougelike dungeon-crawler, by the look of it.

RE: Scores - You're right. My first review or two in this thread was scored, and I think I adopted it more explicitly before I created this thread. I guess at some point, I decided that assigning numerical values to complex experiences was stupid and abandoned the practice, but now I'm back where I started. I'm going by the NL/PS scoring policy now, since they describe what each value 'means' in a fairly satisfying manner.

I'm going to go edit in scores to my older reviews now, because the lack of consistency is going to drive me nuts.

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Completion Status: Adventure Mode only; completed game and then also completed all available time trials

Crash Team Racing originally launched on the PS1 in 1999 as a Playstation-exclusive answer to Nintendo's hit Mario Kart franchise. Despite mechanically being a clone of Mario Kart, it benefited, like Diddy Kong Racing on the N64 before it, from a robust story mode, a feature Mario Kart games have generally lacked. Naughty Dog's racer has been fondly remembered by older Playstation fans for almost two decades, so it's probably not too surprising that a remaster was eventually released last year on modern-gen platforms. I initially didn't plan on playing it, but Nintendo recently made the full game available for free to NSO subscribers for the period of a week. I jumped in 2 - 3 days into the trial period, so I figured I'd spend four days or so thoroughly experiencing the game's Adventure Mode to get a feel for it. As a result, my review/impressions are incomplete, as I'm talking exclusively about the game's story mode.

Crash Team Racing begins when an alien named Nitros Oxide shows up and threatens to destroy the Earth unless a suitably skilled representative from the planet defeats him in a race. Not the most engaging plot on Earth, but it's a decent set-up for a racing game, and, hey, if that sort of plot worked for Urusei Yatsura, why not this? Anyway, in the Adventure Mode, you'll pick a character from the series and a vehicle and drive around a number of hub worlds finding races to engage in. The game is structured so that you have to come in first place in a set number of races in each world before you unlock a boss encounter. Clear the boss, and you'll gain access to the next hub.

Normal races play like Mario Kart: manipulate items and shortcuts to try and sabotage the competition so that you can pull ahead of them. I was surprised to find that, even on the normal difficulty, the game doesn't make this easy. Other racers are savvy and rarely screw up, so even a single mistake can lose you the race if it slows you down sufficiently (like flying off the side of a course). Thankfully, most stages here are fairly reasonable in terms of the way they're designed, with the only stage hazards I found to be particularly annoying being the piranha plants that littered one particular stage, which spend their sweet time attacking you and have an enormous attack radius. Cruelly, the game oftentimes placed items near them. I also noticed that, at some points, they were placed so that you couldn't seem them until you went down a ramp and were blindsided. But, in general, it's not the norm.

Stage design itself is... OK. Impressive considering they're fairly faithful to the source material, and are solidly more impressive than what Nintendo was doing years before in Mario Kart 64. Of course, the stages are a bit bland compared to the polished, rollercoaster-like extravaganzas of Mario Kart 8, but that's hardly a fair comparison.

In addition to normal kart racing modes, each stage also has two alternate gameplay modes. In Relic Races, you speed through a course as quickly as possible, collecting crates that will freeze the timer for different numbers of seconds. Rather than focusing on improving core skill, though, these races incentivize hitting as many of the time crates as possible, which makes for a rather interesting spin on speedrunning that made this mode a lot of fun. In the CTR challenge mode, the letters "C," "T," and "R" will be hidden throughout a stage, and you have to find them to complete the challenge. So they're like the racing game equivalent of the KONG letters from the Donkey Kong Country series. Unfortunately, I found this mode to be rather tedious, as I wasn't fond of completing levels over and over, poking through every nook and cranny and hitting every possible object to find these letters. I completed every course in the game in normal and relic race modes, but after completing one CTR challenge, I didn't bother playing any others.

Boss stages in this game are probably my second least favorite after the CTR challenges. After a brief voiced cutscene, you'll have a one-off race against villains who somehow manage to drive way faster than you are able to by default and constantly spew items out the back of their kart, meaning you spend almost the entire race trying to avoid hazards to catch up to them. I appreciate the attempt by the developers to give the game a satisfying structure, but I don't think boss encounters work well with this style of game, as they generally end up just feeling annoying. Interestingly, the difficulty of these encounters is all over the place, and at least a couple of the normal bosses are more difficult than the final encounter with Nitrous Oxide himself.

Throughout the Adventure Mode, a sentient tribal mask called Aku-Aku pops up to interrupt your gameplay experience and explain Really Obvious Things to the player, like one of those annoying sidekick characters that'll keep popping up in Legend of Zelda games. The thing interrupted the flow of gameplay enough that even my character became annoyed, and started glaring at him whenever one of his explanatory cutscenes was triggered.

Annoyed Coco

The game has a reasonably large cast of racers to choose from, although it's hampered by only being limited to Crash Bandicoot characters (with the notable exception of Spyro the Dragon as a downloadable character, although his availability seems to be sparse if you didn't compete in the event that unlocked him in the first place). Crash, Coco, and Neo Cortex are iconic, of course, but aside from them, you're stuck with a random assortment of animals and minor villains that I barely even recognize. Maybe the character selection is better for big fans of the franchise, but I found it a bit underwhelming. As with Mario Kart games, there are also baby versions of certain characters to unlock. I just stuck Coco Bandicoot, since her older brother Crash has always seemed a bit... high-strung for my liking.

Control-wise, the game holds up fairly well, although I really didn't like how drifting was handled in this game. Not only did it make me feel like my kart was out of control, but, when navigating tight curves and twists in the game's various courses, I had a hard time keeping an eye on the visual indicator at the bottom right of the screen to see when the exact window for activating a drift boost was. Supposedly if you're using a kart, there's a feature that makes it where your tires will glow when a drift boost is available, but playing a hovering, UFO-esque vehicle, I didn't have that luxury. And, in general, when I'm playing, my fingers are already glued to the buttons they're on, and it's difficult to think to move them to click a button to activate a boost. I won't count this as a flaw, but I really prefer Mario Kart's system of drift boosting, where you release a drift in order to activate a boost.

Performance-wise, the game is lacking across all console platforms. Like on PS4, the game is capped at 30fps, which is simply not ideal for racing games, which benefit tremendously from smoother performance. On Switch, it remains mostly stable, although small dips to sub-30fps happen here and there. The bigger 'sacrifice' in the Switch version is image quality: texture quality is worse, some visual effects are missing, and the game is notably lower res, topping out at 480p in handheld mode and 720p when docked. Despite these low-ish numbers, I actually felt like this version of the game looked better when undocked. The image is notably 'soft,' but aggressive use of motion blur and the heavily cartoonish art-style masks much of the dip in image quality (in motion, at least; screenshots look horrendous with the blur effects). In isolation, the idea of playing an undocked Switch racing game at 480p/30 makes me cringe, but, in practice, it worked out well. The game's vibrant art style still makes it one of the better looking handheld kart racers I've ever played.

Musically, Crash Team Racing is a massive disappointment, unfortunately. There's nothing aggressively bad about the OST, but the entire game is filled with very generic, samey kart racer tunes that sound almost like the same track, with only slight variations distinguishing them.

There's also a classic music option in this game that allows you to switch to the music from the PS1 version, but somehow those tracks are even worse than the remastered ones. Halfway through, I just decided to mute the game and put on my own music. It also meant I wouldn't have to hear the same canned trash talk lines over and over. If I had to hear Coco yell "get in the slow lane, buddy!" one more time, I might have gone nuts.

It's difficult to overstate how much the variety of modes, boss battles, overworld progression, cutscenes, etc. available in this adventure mode boost this game as a single-player experience. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe unquestionably shines in the multiplayer department, with smoother performance, better level design, gorgeous music, and so on, but that game is unquestionably disappointing as a single-player experience because of the lack of a sense of narrative or progression to it. It feels like a collection of (really great) levels and little else. Crash Team Racing's Adventure Mode, on the other hand, feels like a proper game, even putting aside the apparent wealth of content available outside of the Adventure Mode that I didn't engage with. CTR ended up being pretty decent, even if the music, several design choices, the roster, and a specific gameplay mode ended up rubbing me the wrong way. CTR's Adventure Mode gets a 6.5/10 from me.

@Ralizah Appreciate seeing a review of CTR. Admittedly my opinion of CTR kinda sunk a little while after the game came out, mostly due to most of the new stuff being locked behind the in game currency that wasn't easy to get a good amount of. I still enjoy the game myself, but if the game doesn't grab you with what's already there, playing the game alot just for the content probably isn't worth it.

That said, I swear I feel like the only Crash fan here and it hurts

@DerMeister Crash 4 was my GotY last year, so you're not alone.

@RogerRoger I'll be honest: I totally forgot Team Sonic Racing was a thing.

My score is actually lower than the fun I had with it, if that makes sense. Despite my complaining, I think the core single-player story mode is decently solid and meaty. Most of my gripes aren't huge, but they start to add up after a while, and I felt it necessary to address them as fully as possible.

Also worth reiterating that this is only for the story mode, which doesn't really touch the pit stop, mtx element, or the bevy of modes and stages outside of it.

@DerMeister It's a Playstation fan website, so I highly doubt you're the only Bandicoot fan here.

And yeah, I recall the premium currency situation souring @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy on the game a bit as well.

@DerMeister I'm also a fan of Crash. Haven't played Crash 4 yet since I only completed Crash Warped late last year, but I'll get round to it eventually.

@Ralizah Interesting writeup. Crash Team Racing took me a while to get used to, mainly due to how drifting is very different to the likes of Mario Kart. The best times in Crash Team Racing all require keeping up the drift combos for as long as possible, to keep the boosts going. But once it clicked, I had a lot of fun tearing through the tracks.

The big positive of the game for me is the amount of content. There's a lot of tracks once you count the CTR, Crash Nitro Kart, and the free DLC tracks. Then there's all the modes for each track.

My main problem with the game was the shop system and microtransactions. The single player is (or at least was) very stingy about collecting coins, making it take a tedious amount of time to unlock characters. Multiplayer was supposedly much better for collecting coins, but I didn't do much of that.

Thanks for tagging me @Ralizah as I'd completely missed on these reviews of yours and @RogerRoger! (I'll be sure to give Wizorb and Squadrons a read later on guys!)

I actually wrote a review for CTR:NF on here ages ago... It was before you created this specific thread and I was actually planning on re-writing it and re-posting it for this thread (Pretty sure me and you talked about it then pretty extensively too)

I think I read somewhere that they actually made Oxide easier because of how hard he was. He's really quite hard to beat in the original and he was a challenge when I played CTR:NF not long after this released. At least I think that's right? I dunno.

I haven't played Mario Kart since... Mario Kart DS (I did play Wii too but I don't remember it at all) so I can't quite comment on the track quality being lower then Mario Kart Deluxe 8 (Though seeing as CTR's a remaster of a 20 year old game and the tracks are exactly the same for the main adventure mode it does kinda blur the line a bit.)

I'll admit to massive notaliga for the original game too with it being one of the first games I played with my kids and being a pretty big Crash fan in general.

Still good review Ral and I agree that the "trash talk" lines are pretty terrible too... Well except for maybe Bandicoot Power!

@RogerRoger Sorry, only just now read your Squadrons review. I agree with pretty much all you have said. I played the entire campaign in VR and have started getting weekly multiplayer sessions together with mates to play with two of us in VR (typically in Fleet battles against AI which is very hard!).

VR adds a lot to the experience, I can't lie. I tried it with and without and being able to look up and down makes a huge difference. In my mind, this game was designed for VR and then made to have a non-VR mode.

However, as a package, I'm really impressed. I bought it at launch at retail price and I think EA did fairly well by the game. It is a niche game in a lot of ways. The campaign was fun, had some exciting moments. The multiplayer is also fun, all packaged up at an affordable price with a lot of replayability. No crazy monetization, just a game that it encourages you to play and enjoy for a fair price. One of my mates who I play with is addicted to it as Xwing and Tie Fighter were his favourite games when we were growing up. Great review!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Thanks! Yeah, I'm pretty sure your review was what prompted the discussion about the microtransaction element of the game originally. I actually combed through the thread looking for the review until I remembered it was probably written before this thread became a thing!

@crimsontadpoles There is a crapton of content in this game. From a single-player standpoint, it's probably one of the best I've seen on that front. The mtx element is unfortunate, and probably the reason I won't end up purchasing the full game, though. Not sure I want to support that business model and/or not have access to certain characters.

That was a very fun written piece @RogerRoger for Star Wars Squadrons... I'm glad to see the return to this unique writing style. Is this something we'll see going forward for every star wars game or just the more multiplayer focused ones?

Have you dabbled with the mulitplayer modes since you wrote this review?

Some very nice screenshots by the way! It looks really quite nice. I can only imagine how even more effective it'd be in VR.

Having only glanced over the screenshots of Wizorb the other day before actually reading over the review properly today I have to admit I was lulled into thinking it was much older then it actually is @Ralizah (Probably because I hadn't heard of it til now and the Breakout/Arkanoid gameplay)

It's a shame it doesn't do quite enough to help make itself really unique or even some basic replayability. Still at least you had a good enough time with it and it's interesting to see you returning to a numbering scheme (I didn't even notice it for Crash Team Racing)

RE: Ever since you made this thread I did think of putting my previous reviews over into here... But with my style having changed so drastically I'd have to rewrite them all for my sense of consistency and that sounds especially daunting having left it so long

-EDIT- Not to mention I still having a number of reviews still waiting to be penned...

@RogerRoger I needed something to occupy my mind going into the weekend. It's hard when I can't go out, although I know everyone is in the same boat. Anyway, I played and completed Batman A Telltale Series - I got it working finally. Had to just keep trying to download it successfully. Took around 5 times. odd.

I had some strange technical hitches on PS5, but those aside, presentation wise it's much more polished than their GoT effort. Pacing is much better. Tighter. Good runtime, and the story is actually entertaining.

@TheIdleCritic Yeah I think I had the same technical issues. Glad you enjoyed it. Was that the first season or second?

@JohnnyShoulder It was the first. I might get the second at some point, but I'm a little burnt out on the Batman/Joker arc. Although, if they do a slow burn before he becomes Batman's nemesis, that could be interesting.

@TheIdleCritic Ah cool. Think I enjoyed the first one over the second series, which I wasn't too impressed with. Seem to remember having a few technical issues on PS4 too, nothing too major but stuff like stuttering and the sound cutting out. I did leave it a couple of years between playing as I think I've grown a bit tired of those kind of games.

Yuppie Psycho: Executive Edition for PC. The executive edition is just the normal version of the game, after receiving a free expansion that added in some extra areas and a new route. I played this game last year and was very fond of it, but never got round to making a detailed write-up. Now seems like as good a time as any, so here goes.

The story revolves around Brian Pasternack, who is arriving at the office for his first day of work. Naturally he gets to do the mundane office activities such as meeting his co-workers, logging on to his computer, and grabbing a cup of coffee. A stereotypical office is not the most exciting of settings for a game, but don't worry. This office is far from stereotypical.

Just an ordinary first day of work...

It soon becomes apparent that there's a lot of sinister things going on in the shadows. People disappearing, areas that are considered unsafe, that kind of thing. Rumour has it that a witch has cursed the company, and is causing these problems. Naturally, the game does get dark in places, and a few parts that made me jump (though admittedly I am quite easy to scare).

The gameplay is an adventure game with some survival horror elements. It involves Brian exploring through the 10 floors of the building as he tries to complete his tasks and uncover the mysteries of what's going on. There will be a lot of backtracking between the different floors, but the handy elevator makes it quick to navigate the building. The office is in a poor state of disrepair, so there's a lot of dark rooms. The ever useful flashlight can help, but make sure you don't run out of batteries for it.

Surely they're straining their eyes by typing in the dark

There's plenty of hazards to watch out for. As he's just an ordinary person and not a skilled fighter, Brian will have to avoid enemies where possible. Health can only be restored by eating food and drink, but there's usually plenty lying around. Scavenging the various drawers is encouraged. While items are in a limited supply, there's generally more than enough to be found. So you don't have to worry too much about running out of things as long as you're careful.

What helps to give the game its charm is the various co-workers that make up the cast. Most of them are somewhat deranged, treating the strange occurrences as an everyday part of their lives. However, they're also full of personality. There's a lot of charm and humour in the dialogue. Their often lighthearted banter helps to balance out the darker elements of the game.

Just your everyday work colleagues

The soundtrack is rather good as well. The soundtrack was created by the same person who made the VA-11 Hall-A music. There's a nice mix of relaxed music for the safer office parts, and more dramatic or emotional music elsewhere when needed.

Overall, I really like of this game. The little touches help make this game special, and there's plenty of secrets and surprises along the way. The variety of characters adds plenty of charm. Plus there's always trouble lurking nearby to keep you on your toes.

Fair enough @RogerRoger! You do you when it comes to these reviews and however you wanna tackle 'em!

And that's good to hear regarding the multiplayer... I figured the VR players would have a pretty big advantage being able to look around more clearly (Though I guess you can't tell who's using VR or not either)

I recall you mentioning this game quite a few times @crimsontadpoles (The rather unique title helped for sure) last year so it's nice to get some detailed thoughts and learn more about it.

It sounds like a rather interesting premise indeed and I'm pretty intrigued, especially with that last screenshot you've posted that shows off a rather unique looking cast!

The music's rather nice too!

@crimsontadpoles Nice review!

I've been put off by the title's art style in the past, but the premise does sound fairly unique, and it's really cool hearing the VA-11 Hall-A composer's work (which was just phenomenal, and sounds pretty darn good here as well; 'Green Horn' is especially a fun piece) in another game. Also love a game that can balance horror and humor well.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

When the game came out I didn't really pay attention. Maybe because it was EA, and their previous Star Wars games have been disasters in their own right. They could never get right, right? Fast forward a year and here am I looking for something new to play while waiting on the proper next gen games. Mandalorian episode 2; and a recent binge of the Star Wars films with my GF who had never seen them, has kindled a new excitement for Star Wars. So I remembered Jedi: Fallen Order. I remember liking Titanfall 2, and Apex Legends was pretty good as well from what I've heard from my friends. So if there's one developer under the hood of EA who could do it right, it's Respawn. And so I bought it...

It was a great decision! The game is structured like Tomb Raider, or God of War. You're free to explore several locations. Backtracking to older locations with new powers and equipment is also part of it. In a way, it's what I expect of a modern-day Metroid game. The planets you visit are all visually distinct locations. Though I was kinda surprised when I learned there is no desert planet. Those seem to be a staple Star Wars setting at this point.

Story-wise it's good for a Star Wars game. It dives into themes that the films don't really touch, at least, not to the extent in this game. And it's much more personal as a result. It's not a mind-bending, plot-twist driven story, but it's good for Star Wars standards. The cast is also nice. Jokes are pretty neat, and nothing it too cheesy. The main character is a bit of a blank slate, and lacks perhaps the most depth of any character. Furthermore, the game is filled with small easter eggs to the Star Wars universe. I'm not that well-versed in the Clone Wars era, but I think I got most of the references. A random stormtrooper saying 'at least we have the high ground' has to be one of the highlights.

I played the game on my PS5 on performance mode. I figured it would look about as good as on PS4, but at 60fps. Visually, it's still a very nice game. I haven't tried the normal mode though. I encountered a few bugs during my playthrough, but nothing too bad. The worst bug was a frozen enemy or two, and that played more in my favour than anything else, so I'm not complaining. The game did crash on me once, which was disappointing. I didn't lose any progress however. I beat the game in around 10 days. Too lazy to check the time! But it's not too long, and I completed every planet 100%. I'd wager somewhere in the 25-30 hour range. It took me months to beat Ghost of Tsushima, so this was refreshing!

Some spoiler-filled complaints:
No Darth Vader fight was a bit disappointing. Understandable from a story perspective, but maybe they should've picked a different 'final boss'. Darth Maul perhaps, he seems to be able to survive anything anyway. I also didn't completely understand the function of that one battle arena planet/station you get transported to halfway throughout the game. Is that setting up for a sequel? I guess it unlocked the bounty hunter fights. It seems like they wanted to do more with it, but couldn't do it due to time constraints. Also, the addition of Merrin to the crew. Cool. But the only thing she did was safe Cal and Cere from the water at the end, and that felt more like a mandatory thing to give her something to do than anything else.

Anyway, easy recommendation if you like Star Wars, or if you're looking for a good action-adventure game that isn't drawn out like the average open world game. Best EA game in a good while.

@Octane, bought it in the recent sale & am looking forward to getting to it (still working slowly through Dragon Quest Heroes, & am planning on playing Sakura Wars next, so it'll probably be a while). I really enjoyed the new God of War, so marrying that with the sci-fi trappings of Star Wars should be a good time.

@mookysam Yeah, the map could sometimes be a pain in the arse though! I often wished there were one or two additional shortcuts.

No performance issues on PS5. Resolution could drop at times, and I think that loading the high rez textures didn't always happen in time, so there was a bit of pop in at times. But not too often fortunately.