Conan Exiles

This review is for the PVE part of the game only.

Conan Exiles is a beautiful, fun game to explore. Sadly for the PVE part I feel like content is extremely limited and can get boring pretty fast.  Conan is a survival game that has PVE, PVP, or PVE with PVP at certain times.  Survival at first can be tedious as you gather and craft your tools, weapons, and first set of clothes eating bugs on the way to a water source. Crafting a bedroll and placing it down will let you spawn there if you die. You will have to find a good spot to build a base so that you can craft the utilities needed to produce better weapons and gear.  Once you have a base you can make a bed to spawn at that base and lay down a bedroll somewhere else for an alternative spawn point. Don't forget about the purge. Its a timed event that spawns NPCs that could attack and destroy your entire base if you don't have protection with pets or thralls. When it works right. There are server settings that can change how purges (and everything) works but for normal settings if you are on a server alone it will always pick you and attack your base once a day. The server that I mainly played on had purges until the last update which seemed to break them. You can find player made map-rooms which allow you to teleport to obelisks that you will find while out and exploring. Crafting a map-room of your own will require higher level character and gear to find the recipe and gather the necessary ingredients. Weather also plays a role in Conan. It can speed up your metabolism making you thirsty and hungry. It can even start taking your health if you get too hot or too cold so you have to wear armor appropriate for the right environment. This also applies for your base but only really matters in cold locations, you may have to build for warmth. There are lesser bosses that you may be able to take on alone and there are some that will require you to bring a few friends along with. There are a few dungeons that are relatively small. Conan also features a perk you may know from Zelda Breath of the Wild. You can climb pretty much anything. It may be tricky at first but jumping from the top of a mountain and catching on and repeating until you are at the bottom can be extremely fun!  Just don't mess up or that could mean you lose everything!  Yeah if you die by default server settings you will lose everything on your character.  If You can get back to your dead body in time you can save all of your lost items.  

Finding creations from other players is the funnest enjoyment I had got from the game. You can find fortresses with amazing detail and everyone has different tastes. I saw incredibly large player made bases, pyramids, and even known walls to have been built around other players bases when they are blocking certain resources or areas. On the downside occasionally I have had the load times of the player made bases slow to load which can lead to invisible walls and even damage your character.

Building bases can be very fun and sometimes frustrating. Weird placement issues on the ground and items refusing to attach no matter what.  Building backwards or from the top down would be the only way to accomplish certain tasks. Fun fact, if you have issues placing a piece you can try to remove any doors around the area. This once solved an issue that was four blocks away from the doorway. Anything crafted and placed down or made will have a set decay timer so that the servers do not get clogged up with unused buildings. The timer is 144 hours and should reset as long as you or someone in your clan logs in to reset the timers. Everything has to be connected around your base to have the same timer, if it is not connected it will have a different timer that you will have to reset by interacting with.

The combat is fun at first using different weapons and mixing combos but the netcode and some of the animations feel completely broken. Certain enemies feel glitchy like the Rhino who you can get stuck in their horns and often has teleported mid charge. The bows were useless in my experience unless you use them to just pull enemies with. Some weapons like the spear has incredible range and can stun lock very fast. There is also a religious system that allows you to build altars. Each having a small benefit and eventually leading to the ability to summon large avatars to help demolish enemy bases in PVP servers.

The pet and thrall system is laughable. Its about the worst AI I have ever saw. Capturing the pets is easy as running over the young animal and pressing the interact key. Both will just stand there once placed. Sometime they will defend your base, sometimes they wont. The Thrall randomly decide if they will use the weapons in their inventory. Instead of having attack or defend options when one is following you, they will only attack something if you get hit first. Many times I have ran inside a building or shelter and had problems getting back out because my pet is blocking the doorway and refuse to move. Sometimes "replacing" them in another location will work but some locations you can not do this. You do have to feed both pets and thralls to keep them alive now. This is nice because before the pet update leftover thralls were literally everywhere and even standing on invisible platforms where old bases used to be.

Overall I've enjoyed Conan Exiles and had a blast building a base and exploring the world of Conan with a few friends. Overall I am at 200 hours and may put in a few more but I do not expect to play much longer. Over half of that time is gathering and building. Normally I welcome PVP in games but I really wanted this to be a PVE experience and would love more content.

Blacklight Retribution Open Beta Review

Blacklight Retribution is Perfect World Entertainment's free to play FPS!  It has just released in open beta. Blacklight Retribution is a fast paced shooter with modes of TDM, DM, DOM, CTF, and TKOTH.  I have tried just about every F2P first person shooter and there is only a few I consider good enough to keep playing.  Blacklight Retribution falls in this category with great graphics, many game modes, a smooth engine, and support from the developers.

When first installing a game, the first thing I do is go into the settings and set everything up.  Blacklight Retribution has a huge range of graphic settings that you can adjust so that you can get the most out of the game. Gameplay settings has options of crouch and aim down sights toggle with customizable cross-hairs.  You can change the size, shape, color and how your cross-hair and reticle look like.  As if these options are not enough, there are several tweaks you can do in the game's ini text configuration file if you are having performance issues.

You start off at level one, leveling up your soldier as you kill and complete game-mode objectives. You unlock several gear and weapon customizations that you can buy with in-game gp.  Gear and weapons both have several stats that each piece of gear can change.  For example gear can give you more speed and health while for weapons you can customize your gun so that you change its damage, bullet spread, reload time, range, and more.  Almost all gear, weapons, and weapon parts can be bought with in-game money earned from just playing the game.  The different type of weapons you can get to customize is the default assault rifle, combat rifle, burst rifle, sniper rifle, and the light machine gun.  Almost all gear and weapons can be bought for just a day, three days, a week, or permanently using the in game money.

You can also make emblems.  You have three different list of images you can mix together and change colors to go beside your name.  You can see every players emblem in the game lobby and the scoreboard.  If you look at the picture above you can see these emblems, my game name is BoyScout.

There is also nodes and node sockets.  As you play you will earn nodes which give you several different advantages.  You can place these nodes in one of the five node sockets.  You can make a node stronger by trying to fuse the same types together.

After all of the customizations you may be worried higher level players will have a huge advantage having better stuff unlocked.  It will be hard to take down players that are already really good, but as a low level I did not have problems with over powered opponents.  I believe it is balanced enough to give everyone a chance and you will also have other low level opponents.  If a specific enemy is able to out perform you every time you can always use HRV to see where they are on the map and stay away from them.

Getting into a match is simple. By hitting play you will have several games come up showing game type, map, players, and ping.  Before a match is started you will be in a lobby where you can have a brief time to talk to other players, customize your loadout, or adjust anything you may need to.  When the match starts it will not take you to the game until you hit begin, so if you are in the middle of customizing your loadout you do not have to worry about rushing.

Once you begin the game you will usually spawn close to your team and use the HRV feature.  This feature is basically a legitimate wall-hack.  For a short period of time you can use the HRV, then you will have to wait for it to recharge before you use it again.  The recharge time for the HRV is not long at all, it will keep the action fast and fresh showing where the enemies are and their name in bright red. 

From here you have all of the basic FPS mechanics from crouch and melee to jump.  Using the melee feature, you can equip several different items to increase the damage or just use the stock of your gun.  Using the stock of your gun will take out opponents in one or two blows if they are already damaged.

During the match you have the option of using pods which are placed in several locations in each map.  Each pod uses cp points which are gained by killing the opponents and completing game-mode objectives.  By running up and hitting your use key you can regenerate your health and ammo or get things like rocket launchers, flame throwers, or the hard-suit.  The hard-suit is a machine you can get into with mini-guns and rockets to boost your kills and help your team win.  While walking around in this hard-suit you are not invincible but regular guns does minimal damage to it.  Sneaking up on a hard-suit with a flame thrower can burn the pilot out and steal the machine.

Each match is set to a time limit of ten minutes and also has score limits.  Each game mode has different score limits.  The matches are in perfect length in my opinion. If you do not like a  particular map it will not take forever to get to another.

When you are in the match lobby or game lobby you can click your name to see your mailbox, friend list, all of the items you currently have purchased, and report hackers.  If you come across someone that looks very suspicious BLR has a very nice report feature here where you can enter the name of the player, select one of several reasons you are reporting them, and leave a comment for a more detailed description.

Conclusion:
One thing I love about this game is the fact that the developers show that they care.  They read and reply to the forums.  They take in what people say and answer questions.  This game is in open-beta but already feels complete to me.  New features will be added and optimizations will be done.  Good graphics, smooth game-play, and fast paced action makes this one fun as hell game to play.

If you have any questions about this game I will be glad to answer them!  I want to help the community grow so this game will continue to rock!

You can download the game here
http://blacklight.perfectworld.com/download

System Requirements:

• Operating System
• Minimum: Windows® XP / Vista / Windows 7 (32-bit)
• Recommended: Windows 7 (64-bit)

CPU: Minimum: Dual-Core CPU / Recommended: Quad-Core CPU 
RAM: Minimum: 2 GB of RAM / Recommended: 4 GB of RAM 
Hard Disk: 8GB Free HD Space

Graphics: Minimum: Geforce 8xxx or Radeon HD2xxx / Recommended: 1GB+ DX11 GPU

The Witcher 2 review

 

Gameplay:

Geralt of Rivia comes back in the sequel The Witcher 2, hunting the king slayer who framed him for killing King Foltest.  Not much has changed in this game from the first game. You have magic through different signs and swordsmanship to help you fight through all of the enemies and creatures.  You can build up your character as you level to make your magic, swordsmanship, and alchemy stronger.  As the witcher, he always carries two swords.  One sword made of steel to fight the human enemies and a sword made of silver for slaying the creatures of the game.  

Weapons and equipment both can be upgraded with runes and armor enhancements so that you can make your gear even better.  You can also earn and buy diagrams for making your own sword and gear which turn out to be considerably cheaper if you have or can get the materials for making them.  On top of crafting you have alchemy.  You can earn or buy formulas to make several different type of potions that benefit you in many ways.  You have to meditate to use the majority of these potions, so you will have to be out of combat!  Some potion-made enhancements can be placed on your swords at anytime.

The game campaign has game changing decisions that you will have to make for Geralt which in turn makes the game even longer to play if you want to see all the different variations that you can end up with. Throughout the game you will always have the main quest with several side quests you can accept to level your character faster and earn more money.  There are also some small mini-game like options including arm-wrestling, dice poker, and fist fights.  All are relatively easy, especially the fist fights where you have to use the WASD keys when it tells you to.  If you pay attention you will not lose a fight the whole game.  The Witcher 2 then takes things to the next level letting you go into the inns and have sex with hookers.  Bribing with the right amount of coin will earn you a R rated cut scene that is not shy to show anything.  

I played the game on Hard, and being somewhat challenging it did take a little getting used to. Once I learned how to control my character it was pretty easy.  The boss fights can be a little tricky, but using the right mix of signs and swords will make most fall pretty easy.  There are four difficulty levels you can choose from: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Insane.  I can imagine insane would be pretty tough and you would constantly need to rely on a lot of potions, bombs, and traps to survive.  Hard mode will probably be the funner choice for most gamers! 

The sound in The Witcher 2 is pretty good.  Nice effects of hearing the wind howl, monsters growl, guards yelling, hookers moaning, and the clinging of swords.  There is so much more than just that but while using headphones I could even tell which direction I was about to get attacked from. 

There is one additional game mode called Arenas.  In arenas you are setup in an arena against the odds, each win you will get points and a choice between weapon or gear.  It is a nice little game mode if you want to just jump in and beat some butt.

Graphics and optimization:
The Witcher 2 is a beautiful game.  There are great graphics with sharp textures and detailed environments.  The grass will sway, blood will stain your sword, everything in the distance does not look like a flat picture but rather like it is actually there.  On my PC the game runs great averaging 50-60+ FPS the entire time.  You may notice the game stutters for a split second every now and then, this is due to it loading things from the hard drive.  It is not an inconvenience or a big stutter and according to your hard drive setup you may not even notice these load times!


Conclusion:
The Witcher 2 was a very fun game for me to play through.  The combat is fun and fluid, giving you different ways to play the game.  There is also a lot of depth with the different story changing decisions you have to make.  Nice range of difficult levels for all type of gamers.  Beautiful environment with some of the best PC graphics.  This is one of the few games I was sad to beat, but you can always play more to choose the different paths!


GRAPHICS: 10/10
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
SOUND:  9/10
OVERALL:  10/10

The Darkness II Single-player review

The Darkness II returns as Jackie Estacado is now the don of the Franchetti family.  When you start the campaign, it updates you as to what happened in the first game in case you, like me never played it!  Being able to still play this new game without being left out of the previous storyline was a step in the right direction from the start.

Graphics and Optimization:
The Darkness II changes it's graphic style from the first game, this time using cel-shading techniques.  Even using these techniques the game is very beautiful and detailed with characters having a real-life look and feel to them.  To top that, the game runs very smooth on recommended specs without any hiccups running above 100 frames per second.

Gameplay:
The fast paced action was very consistently fun and held my attention throughout the whole campaign.  Being able to kill the enemies in a variety of ways is what made the Darkness II so fun to me.  Welding several different types of guns, you could shoot your way through or use the darkness to get creative in killing the A.I.  Throughout the game you can grab many objects that are always around and throw them at the enemy resulting in slicing, impaling, or crushing them.  On top of that, using the darkness, you can slice and beat the enemy to death or grab them and perform one of several finishing moves to boost health, ammo and more.  The story itself was fun and interesting and held my attention, waiting to find out what happens next.  As the game throws many enemies at you, many are clones of one another.  This still does not make the game any less fun.

Taking around 5 hours to complete, it was a short campaign but fun enough to do it a second time.  The Vendettas mode adds length to the game allowing you to play as one of four hit men using the same darkness powers that Jackie has.  You can also play Vendettas mode online in co-op.

Conclusion:
The Darkness II is very fun if you are looking for a fast paced shooter with many ways to kill your enemy!  Should run great on even lower-end pc's that meet the minimum requirements and has enough of a story to keep you interested.  The main con of the game is its shorter campaign.

GRAPHICS: 8/10
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
SOUND: 7/10
OVERALL: 7/10

F.E.A.R 3 Review (single player only)

This game will not have any screen shots taken by me since I already beat and uninstalled before deciding to write a review.

Graphics and Optimization:  Being a newer game (released June 21, 2011) the graphics are smooth and detailed.  It does not compare to the visuals Crysis 2 gives but everything is polished with nice high res textures.  This game is one of the smoothest games I have tried recently.  My PC runs constantly above 100 FPS with everything maxed out.  Launching the game is quick and painless. Getting into the main menu is very quick and you can start playing within seconds.

Gameplay:  I have been a fan of the FEAR series for years so I was excited to hear they were releasing FEAR 3.  This time around you play as Point Man, son of Alma and brother of Paxton Fettel who is known through the first two FEAR games.  Your objective as Point Man is to find Alma and stop her from having another abnormal child.

FEAR 3 feels just like the previous game in terms of movement speed, aiming, and gun mechanics.  You do not have a lot of different type of enemies during the whole game.  You have a couple type of soldiers, phase commanders (like super soldiers), survivors (insane people), the EPA (big machine with rockets and mini guns), Scavengers (the main "monsters" in this game), and the creep which haunts you the whole game.  Filled with fun shoot-outs, the enemy A.I. are still pretty easy even on the hardest difficulty.  There are a couple harder parts of the game versing the EPA or a big group of Scavengers in tight areas.

The series still tries to hold a mental state over you so that you are sitting on the edge of your seat, not knowing what you will be seeing around the next corner.  In all honesty, other than high res blood smeared on the walls and occasional flashbacks with creepy atmospheres, this game is not scary at all.  The creepiest part of the game is the sound which makes you think somethings always watching you. It feels like they were more focused on fun shoot-outs and the story-line than actually making the game scary.

You can also level up in FEAR 3 to enhance your character for things like increased slow-mo time, health regeneration, and extra ammo clips.  As you kill,  you can collect psychic links to soldiers that had came in contact with Alma and find Alma Dolls.

This game has great sound with everything from the enemies yelling, guns being fired, and creepy sounding effects.


Gameplay is not long at all.  4-5 hour campaign will have you beating FEAR 3 within no time and uninstalling unless you were to play online.

Conclusion:  I really liked FEAR 3 for a quick fun shooter that never slowed down.  FEAR 3 has all the basic FPS supplies though it does not have anything outstanding.

GRAPHICS: 7/10
GAMEPLAY: 7/10
SOUND: 7/10
OVERALL: 7/10