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This user has reviewed 5 games. Awesome! You can edit your reviews directly on game pages.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition Deluxe

Crash To Desktop Simulator

Its a Bethesda game I could play in 10 minute increments, and sometimes make progress after the consistent crashing if I saved every time I crossed into a new cell, and was willing to take alternate routes, or just not do certain things in order to limp through this minefield. It was not a pleasant experience to relive the instability circus of mid 2000s Oblivion. There are still plenty of optimization methods such as the 4gb patch, and some fairly good bugfix mods that used to make things bearable, but I could not find a usable config that works for me in 2025. I've been modding and tweaking Bethesda games for decades, but this particular edition is the first one I've ever had to shelve as Not Worth It.

5 gamers found this review helpful
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Constantly shocked by how good this is

Tainted Grail has fixed literally every problem I ever complained about with the ElderScrolls games; the most prominent of which (imo) has always been the grossly unrealistic combat. TG feels light years ahead of both TES and Souls-likes in terms of the stark realism. Anyone who has done armored combat even in reenactment battles, will know how brutal the endurance problem is. This type of fighting is an exercise in resource management; if you can't control heat and exhaustion you die, its that simple. Something 'like' this is being reflected in this game in terms of endurance and stamina, and I very much appreciate it. Things like this help a dark fantasy to be appropriately fatalistic without resorting to simple punishment. The realism of your human limitations is a natural difficulty, and more grim than any number of over-amped bosses. That is just one part of the game - there are so many other aspects to the design of TG that are well thought out. Another is the huge range of freedom you're given in terms of character types and play styles - but unlike other titles in this genre, you're not simply a master-of-everything by default, where your sense of class identity disappears. Choosing a direction like close melee or ranged means you will still have to make an investment into what you want to be good at. I will play this game for years, and really hope that Questline/Awakend Realms does well enough to support continued development on DLCs. You guys blew this out of the park.

3 gamers found this review helpful
Baldur's Gate 3

This World Doesn't Need You

I played this game very early, from its first beta (hasn't changed much in 3 years). There are no serious technical issues, it has always been playable. The biggest problem with Baldur's Gate 3 is how much it emphasizes the 5e ruleset. This version of DnD heavily relies on a hard narrative on rails, because the world and its mechanics are so poorly designed, any campaign will fall apart without a theme park attendant. If you can tolerate that, the second problem is the narrative itself - this story is way too overdone for a starting character, its entire plotline consists of engame lvl 20+ content. You are overwhelmed with stuff a lvl 1 character should never have even heard about. The Feature Characters (companion npcs) outshine you with their epic backgrounds, raw power, and pre-established roles in the world. An RPG of this tradition is meant for the player to create a story of their own, not be smothered by the Game Master's npcs. But that is what happens. Baldur's Gate 3 is less like a DnD game, and more like the personal fan fiction of the Larian design staff. They have personally invested so much into these characters that you literally feel like an accessory to their adventures, and your own path, meaning, or purpose never really exists. This is what happens when a Dungeon Master personally projects too much of their own ideas and personality, beliefs, etc into the game world. Its a sign of immaturity and lack of skill in gamemastering, and it becomes a form of manipulation which can be offensive to experienced players. A DM who wants to project something should just write a book, not run a campaign. In BG3 I could not find the Faerun I am familiar with from the original material. What I did find was an image of Faerun beset with the most unlikely situations, unbelievable behaviors (where are the alignments and racial cultures?), woke politics and over-sexualized characters and situations. Maybe that appeals to new (2020's) DnD culture, but certainly not all, or even half of those involved. When you cast a timeless genre into a mold fixed by modern, contemporary issues, you date-stamp that game in a way that will make it unappealing to both old-school players, and those molded by future cultural influences.

171 gamers found this review helpful
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition

A World of Estrogen

This game mentions 'female protagonist'. That was an understatement, considering that 80% of all characters of any significance whatsoever are female. I can understand that equal representation is important to some people, but the casting and writing for this game broke immersion after a couple of hours on account of the fact that there are no such populations to even compare it to. Seriously, there are no male characters in this world who have a voice and role that is anything other than a merchant, a failure, or a disposable minion. It it weren't so horrendously weighted by this caricature of gender imbalance, this would be a tremendously enjoyable game. In terms of the D&D RPG experience, I think Pathfinder does a much better job that D&D mainly because of what it hasn't removed - alignments, which are the glue that holds that universe together. Without alignments, you really descend into something that is basically a renaissance faire, where people are just wearing costumes and looking for their next spicy evening with someone. Alignment is the basis for the many divergent (Mythic) paths you can take in this story, and allows you to enjoy some very different playthroughs depending on the type of character you're willing to play. That is a huge value. Character detail is just phenomenal. The amount of classes and related abilities is just amazing; many games of this style do not go to the lengths of facilitating things like mounted characters, or facilitating the dark alignments with classes that should be there (cultists, etc). Gameplay feels very streamlined, and some or all of the steps in the process can be accelerated to levels that surpass the usual turn based mechanic. Its great to see the active mod community, and know there are customizations available if you want them. Overall, I am certain I would give this game a 5 if the writing had been less extreme on the gender slant. But sadly, it isn't, and that does the rest of the game an injustice.

56 gamers found this review helpful