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[DameonRaye]

Cody R Erb, 34 years, Current IT professional and aspiring writer, among many other things. Tossing my own weary, moth-eaten, faded old hat into the ring. Here are a few example reviews I've posted for games on Steam:

Sand Land:
It's been quite a while since I'd first heard wind about this game, several months, or maybe a year or two, it's difficult to remember. I kept my eye on it for some time, my interest growing consistently. Not much word seemed to get out about it, up until we were nearing a few months before it's release, and I started seeing some hype for it, speculation and interest, people sharing the manga, and other Akira Toriyama content. I decided early on from them, I was getting this game. I wasn't hyped for it, or overly expectant of it, I was simply intrigued, because something about this game not only pulled on old memories, but it gave me an impression that was very much removed from what I've been getting about games from recent years.

Frankly, what Sand Land is, the "soul" that built it, and the impression that it gives, is difficult to describe. What the game is though, is certainly not something that exists trying to out class or out perform every other game on the market. The marketing felt... restrained, and purposeful. Like, yes they are trying to make money, everyone who releases a product needs to profit. No, the impression that I got from this games marketing is the same impression I get from playing it; Old memories of game ads and demos from developers who really, truly invested their souls into what they've made. Sand Land is only what it was intended to be, no more and no less.

I saw a lot of reviews for this game drop in articles, many with several complaints, much of which came down to "boredom" and complaints that the game wasn't outclassing other available games. That's true, because Sand Land doesn't have to. It's a well crafted experience; it's a lovingly told story crafted out of the world that Akira Toriyama built, and it's a distilled and refined game designed with sincere intent and well realized goals. There are complaints people are sharing, mostly boiling down to personal preference, about things like the dialogue or the combat, but many great games have annoying factors, and not every game is for everyone. My advice is... forget modern gaming. Forget the expectations. Forget what you think you know about what makes a great game. Sand Land doesn't need any of that, because it's not trying to compete with that.

Sand Land is well worth playing, and well worth owning. It exists purely in that special memory of when games developers truly loved and cared for what they were creating, or at least those games that felt that way. In that era where every ounce of your gaming experience bleeds passion and happiness, where every moment has a deeper impact internally to your mind and heart. Sand Land isn't nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, and it's not out to win all the awards and to be filled with bombastic content. Sand Land was purely and simply made to bring happiness, pull you into a damned good story, and draw you into it's world.

If it's not for you, then it's not for you. If you need that adrenaline drip feed of modern gaming's high stress uber-competitive need for profit and success, that's perfectly fine. Me, I don't need Sand Land to be anything more than what it was made to be, because it's damned good at being just what it is, and that's plenty enough for me. Akira... may you forever rest well, may your creations and your soul live on forever in the hearts and minds of those who loved it all. So long, our friend.

Dark Alliance:
Currently in the process of getting a refund for this title. Here's why:

I purchased this title (deluxe edition) the night before release, because I honestly had no idea it was so close to releasing, and that it had pre-purchase options. I did so simply because I felt somewhat confident that this title had an opportunity to be the "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance" sequel (spiritual or not) that I've been waiting for, for years. I was firmly, and sorely, disappointed. What were my expectations? A continuous hack & slash romp through various locations across a multitude of Act's, filled with player-friendly combat, smooth third person gameplay, and mass loot collecting, all in a nice D&D package. Instead, this game is an unconfident clone of Warhammer Vermintide, done poorly. Sold at half-price no less (unless you purchased the deluxe edition. Why am I unwilling to give this game a chance to hold onto my money and grow? Simply because, I can already see the systems that are in place, and how they're all going to be fundamentally damaging to enjoying the game long term. I can almost guarantee you, there will be microtransactions in its future, and an immense grind that will require constantly replaying the same parts of the game over and over again (instead of allowing you to do so at your leisure and enjoyment). This is most certainly not what I was hoping for with this title. Why is it fine that Warhammer Vermintide works with this format, but not this title? Simple, and two-fold; It's namesake is Dark Alliance, so it's in no way wrong to hope that this title would have followed more closely with it's ancestral titles, giving players more freedom to change equipment on the go, gaining in strength during gameplay, instead of mirroring Vermintide and only allowing equipment changes between missions. Where Warhammer Vermintide gets it right by making the gameplay more enjoyable in it's format, and allowing player progression between missions to be meaningful. Yes, there is upgrading and material requirements, none of it is slapdash, and is designed to be significant, and player-friendly. If you are upgrading with one character, much of that same equipment can help you to boost another character significantly, making progression tied more to the player themselves, rather than the character. Using materials you've gained to improve other characters isn't a hindrance, it's an enjoyable part of the game.

D&D Dark Alliance gets all of this wrong. Character Progression is tied singularly to the character. This game flies entirely in the face of its predecessors; it's not a Dark Alliance sequel, it's a bad Vermintide clone. The loot system has a thousand red-flags of microtransactions incoming. The gamplay is stilted and uncomfortable, the enemies are copy-pasted entities with no character besides random one liners, and aren't fun to fight. Every action your character takes seems to stop you in your tracks, meaning you have to anticipate everything, instead of being able to enjoy flowing through combat in a flurry. I honestly don't know how many times I can restate that this is a Vermintide clone done poorly, and adequately get that message across. Even with the "speed" characters, it seems like you move fast, and then stop dead to do anything. The forced third person perspective means forcing yourself to adjust to the strange angles you're being attacked from, instead of being able to switch sides, or move the camera to the back, or god forbid play in first person. Usage of the controls just seems... poorly designed, like aiming just seems finicky, the block and parry mechanics feel unwieldy and like they have a mind of their own, and swinging your attacks just to feel like every move either comes up short or flings you into the enemy doesn't make any sense. I really wanted to love this game, I'd been waiting for it since it was teased a year or two ago, yet I kept not hearing anything about it until it was literally the day before. It's almost as if the developers and publishers had no confidence in this game, and are just rolling it out so all their effort doesn't go to waste. I'm disappointed, and I honestly don't usually give bad reviews. Hell, I didn't even rate Cyperpunk this poorly. You know what this really is? It's a child trying to describe to you Lord of the Rings: War in the North, as if it was Warhammer: Vermintide... poorly.

 

[Yousef]

I like what you wrote there

 

[DameonRaye]

Examina:

I've deeply enjoyed this game for as long as I've played it. As frustrating as it can be, they aren't wrong when they say that the combat and world is rewarding, I've enjoyed everything I've taken away from it so far, and the current level of content is extensive and enjoyable. I've a bit more faith in these devs than most, to continue working on the content for this game (though I do understand if they wish to work on other projects as well. Seeing what's available here makes me curious as to what else they might be able to develop). I suppose I'll break down my review into two parts:

What I tend to dislike about this game, is the overtly, and over "clunkiness" of the gameplay/controls. I truly understand what they are going for, and I do have this constant feeling while playing that my characters stumbling and clumsiness are a factor of my low skill level in controlling my character, and that it would tighten up and feel more natural dependent on my increasing skill with the controls, I still feel at odds with it on the simplest level. Your character always seems to bumble into the simplest objects, his leg placement feels less like a normal adult male walking around, and more like a newborn calf taking its first steps. While I understand that you learn overtime, instead of feeling like a natural progression, it feels more like a severe handicap to start. Your character isn't freshly birthed as an adult, they are clearly learned and developed adults, and I would expect that they at least would know how to move a weapon around objects and corners, and not stumple over simple objects on the floor or in front of them. My actual guess is that the physics engine of the game only allows for a certain level of control over the character, and instead of tightening up the controls or engine itself, the devs (and other players) feel that you should "Git Gud" and learn to control yourself like it's a difficulty setting. Another complaint is in the main storyline, in that story aspects seem to be very few and far between, and while I love that it leaves the world open for exploration and focusing more on what you're seeing and feeling, I would deeply enjoy more... subtle story content, like naturally occuring asthetics and atmosphere settings, situations with organically tell the story, and more notes/books that you can read and learn about the world and it's lore. Also, more ways to recover your health please? Seriously, a two, maybe three health flasks in the entire game, and no other way to recover your health? Personally, I would have enjoyed more natural ways of healing, with the random health potions being a huge bonus: things like being able to barricade a door and sleep in a bed here and there to heal, and finding things like bandages or stints, or being able to make them as a means to set broken bones and wrap up cuts, maybe even using alcohol to clean your wounds, and also as torch/lantern fuel. I think content like this would add a lot to this game, and make it much more enjoyable, while still being an incredibly difficult game.

However, NONE of this detracts from the game itself in anyway. Those are just personal preferences, and I can honestly find those things in other games, as can any other players which is just the simple reality of it. This game, for what it is, is perfect at doing exactly what it sets out to do, and considering that they are adding more content, just makes me that much more excited to play it. I feel like this game is very much my own personal "Dark Souls," and for what it's worth, I love that about it. To be honest, I haven't even truly made it much further than into the second area/level, and I've enjoyed the arena combat quite a bit more than I had originally thought. Actually, I think I'm going to go play it right now.

Valheim:
At this point, if you haven't heard about Valheim, then I can't imagine why you're looking at the Steam reviews. I would assume that you've likely heard everything there is to know about the game already either through word of mouth, or through the gazillions of articles which have been written and rewritten, posted and reposted, Facebook is literally swamped with them... for very good reason. Everyone is going to have their opinions, certainly, and a lot of the diehard "Survival Game" fans out there will tell you that this is a casual survival for casual gamers. They're not wrong, but this game is so much more than that.

Valheim is beautiful; It's a retro-throwback modernization of everything that feels good, and I mean really good, in survival games. It is punishing, but not in that absolutely brutal way that every other "survival" game tries to be, so if you do die and lose all of your stuff, it's 100% on you and not on some BS jankiness that gets passed off as "intended difficulty." I've never lost all of my stuff in such a way that I've been completely unable to return it, and on more than one occasion, the design of the game itself saved me.

Valheim feels really damn good to play; everything in this game makes you feel not just like a living breathing Norse Viking, but like an honored Viking, a survivor in an unknown land, and a glorious warrior. Everything from sailing across the ocean, to hauling cart loads of wood, stone, and ore, to building whatever kind of longhouse, fortification, tower, or castle you imagine, feels flawlessly enjoyable. While it still has it's own very minor flaws, the mechanics of morphing the land around you to prepare for building, to actually building, are miles high above nearly anything I've ever seen in a video game, besides perhaps Minecraft. It's difficult to describe without actually showing you, or letting you play for yourself, but the building mechanics are solid, and one of the primary reasons I continue to play this game, and I'm still only just getting started.

Valheim looks incredibly beautiful. Yes, I get it, a lot of people out there are loathe to call this game's low-res textures anything better than Runescape, but I submit that people with that opinion, who seem to hold "graphics" above all other reasons to value a video game, are entirely missing the point of what Valheim achieves. For a game that literally installs at somewhere around 1.05 GB at most, Valheims visual value is leagues above so many games that run upwards of 50GB to install. There's a serious lesson to be learned here about what truly makes an amazing video game amazing. The lighting, the sound design, the night sky, and the daylight, the way the weather looks, sounds, and feels, the sounds of the wild animals and the wind through the trees, everything about this game is beautiful.

Seriously, stop reading this and play the game. I'm really not sure why you've even made it this far, I mean, ♥♥♥♥, I'm already bored typing this, how can you still be reading it? Just, go play the game already, damn. I'm tired of writing, I'm going to go back to playing.

TO ADD: This is a post Mistlands update addition to my review; Developers, if you happen to read this, I have several complaints. I love this game. I love how cathartic it can be, while also being reasonably challenging. However, the severe difficulty spike with the Mistlands update is sincerely damaging my enjoyment of the game. "Git gud" doesn't even qualify for this, the Seeker's severe damage spike, the insane knockback, their attack patterns, all need to be nerfed to a reasonable degree, as in, we have been utilizing our fully upgraded armor, gear, mead and boss buffs, top quality food, and even at full kit with Yagluth ready gear, the Seekers (even the basic tier enemies) are taking massive chunks of health on their own. Which wouldn't be bad if they weren't built like Abrams tanks. High damage and moderate health, or high health and moderate damage, but not insane health insane damage. If feels as though you've lost the plot, and are expecting players to face these enemies with fully improved gear from the Mistlands update, when the fully upgraded armor and weapons from Mistlands should be in preparation for the Queen boss, not just the enemies.

However, even that wouldn't be bad enough, if you couldn't tell that several other aspects of the game have been changed negatively to affect the players. The longboat's sailing momentum has been changed, causing travel with the ship to become extremely risky. You've increased the spawn rate of higher tier enemies, causing players to get ganked by severely over powered groups. Also, I'm absolutely positive that you've altered enemy behaviors to cause them to actively move towards the general vicinity of the player at a much higher rate than before, tot the point that I've noticed we're getting ambushed by large groups of enemies much, much more often than before.

Updating the game and setting all of these various factors as a means to ramp up difficulty in order to pad out your current end game isn't a good move. It's causing players to be turned away from the game, simply because of this drastic spike in frustration. Do I expect the challenge to give way to power fantasy? Hell no, but I also do not appreciate getting noticeably deliberately f**ked over.

Post automatically merged: Dec 4, 2024

I like what you wrote there

Thank you! Appreciate the response, the post kept auto-merging my submissions, and then word limiting me, so I was able to add a couple more. Any constructive feedback would be helpful, I've written a lot of work related knowledge articles, but nothing creative professionally, thus far.

 

[Yousef]

I believe there’s no need to submit multiple exhibits (but there’s no harm in doing so either). Usually one is enough, and then it gets examined in case it needs to be expanded to suit the guidelines.
Those seem to be intended as “reviews”, if so, then a quick glance at review guidelines might be helpful :D https://retrogametalk.com/threads/review-guidelines.24/

Also, I love the hearts being pasted here. That mustve been steam’s profanity filter.

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

Woah haha, I admit I only read 2 reviews cos i've gotta run.
But you seem to know how to write.
Remember to check the guidelines and if you need anything let me know.

So welcome to the guild!

 

[Yousef]

Welcome!!
The pizza is over there.

 

[DameonRaye]

Awesome! I will need to setup my profile then, and make this place a homepage XD

 

[Yousef]

Hell yeah, can’t wait

 

[Another Iori]

I managed to read the first two reviews, but by the third one, I gave up and if you're willing to take advices from this stranger, here's what I have to say about it.

Even though we’re communicating through written words right now, the human brain is naturally wired to think in images and sounds.

Writing is just an graft we acquire through school education.

So, when you're talking about interactive products like video games, it’s absolutely necessary that when you start and describe a component of the game in detail, using images, sounds, and videos should be mandatory.

For example, when you talked about 'Sand Land,' I was able to fill in the gaps with my imagination, because I had already read Toriyama’s comic 10 or 15 years ago, but with the other two games you mentioned, I didn't know them and within my mind I found no useful resources to draw from.

Also, when mentioning titles of works, single ('') or double ("") quotation marks should be used.

If you don't like this solution, some writers use bold as a placebo instead.

 

[Yousef]

I managed to read the first two reviews, but by the third one, I gave up and if you're willing to take advices from this stranger, here's what I have to say about it.

Even though we’re communicating through written words right now, the human brain is naturally wired to think in images and sounds.

Writing is just an graft we acquire through school education.

So, when you're talking about interactive products like video games, it’s absolutely necessary that when you start and describe a component of the game in detail, using images, sounds, and videos should be mandatory.

For example, when you talked about 'Sand Land,' I was able to fill in the gaps with my imagination, because I had already read Toriyama’s comic 10 or 15 years ago, but with the other two games you mentioned, I didn't know them and within my mind I found no useful resources to draw from.

Also, when mentioning titles of works, single ('') or double ("") quotation marks should be used.

If you don't like this solution, some writers use bold as a placebo instead.

That’s a nice way of putting it. Game mechanics, levels and such can be tricky to put into words without visual reference.