My Time at Portia

 My Time at Portia is game that was originally released in 2018. This game was the result of a successful kickstarter campaign, as far as I know. In the game you move to a cozy little town of Portia where you manage a workshop where you can build all sorts of different items, either to the different people of Portia in the form of commissions or to the town as a part of larger projects. The game is still receiving new content so you won't run out of things to do.

Story

The story starts of as you move to Portia to the old workshop your father, who you haven't seen in a long time, left you. The story then progresses as you open up new areas in the form of different projects that the major set up since he wants to develop Portia to be the center of all of the free cities. The game is set in a sort of post apocalyptic world but it isn't anything you would see in a Fallout game, rather it is after the world has cleared out of all of the nasty things and is again very pleasant and people are re-settling it. This means that there are a lot of "old world" artifacts to discover, one of them being an AI called the all source, which the latter half of the story is more focused on. 

Gameplay

The core gameplay is very simple but also very addictive. You manage a workshop and you create different items that the town or the citizens need. Either you can directly create these on a worktable, if you have all the materials required, or on a more complex building platform that often requires parts created by some of your other machines such as the sawmill or the rolling machine. To acquire these required materials you need to either mine for them in old ruins, as is the case for most ores or old world items such as a circuit board. Other main way to acquire materials is to cut down trees that are all around the world. You can also do some farming to gather some resources, but as your workshop has quite limited space for different buildings or farm plots it really is easier to just kill neutral or hostile animals for animal goods. Lastly you can buy some materials but this is not recommended as it will cost you money, and you will be needing a lot of that as the game progresses. So most of your days will be either collecting materials, or crafting. It can be quite boring at states but later on a lot of these processes will be possible to automate to a degree. 

Another gameplay aspect is relationships with different people. You can do quests for people, or gift them items you have made, or just any old junk to try and increase your reputation with them. Increasing reputation gives a variety of different bonuses depending on the people you increase it with. The end game being able to find a suitable husband or a wife that you can marry and move in with you. 

And this game also has a lot of excitement in the form of combat. You will encounter a lot of different enemies in the different old world places that you visit and at the end of them usually a boss fight. The bosses can be quite hard to kill if your gear isn't up to date, or even with better equipment but it is quite easy to learn the different patterns that the bosses attack in with some exceptions. 

Open world

The world of Portia is quite beautiful but on the design front there have been made a few mistakes on this part. As the story progresses, the world also opens more and more. Travelling it can be quite slow even with a mount. Very early in the game you unlock the option to fast travel but this takes in game time from your already short days. Some issues I found was being able to access an area that I had not yet unlocked, but unlocked a different area that let me access this "locked" area. This would have not been a huge problem if there was another way out of this place but the walls to this "still locked" area were full of invisible walls and I took my time to finally get out of there. Another issue I had with invisible walls was in the late game where I unlocked a certain type of travel and encountered invisible walls in places that had no reason to have them.

Comparison to previous one

There is no previous game in this franchise but there are is another game coming after this called "my time at sandrock". Sandrock being another city set in the same universe and I can't wait to get my hands on that one.

The review

This game is one of the best ones that I have played recently. For two weeks I did nothing else but play this game and after 70+ hours I finally completed the main story. For what it costs, this game is absolutely worth it, and it has much more content beyond that 70+ hours. The only reason I had to uninstall after the main story was because it had completely swallowed up my life and I have other things to do as well. If it wasn't for the invisible walls and minor bugs I would have given this game a solid ten but for now it is a 9/10

Assassin's creed Origins

 Assassins Creed (AC) Origins is a game that was released in 2017 and was said to be a breath of fresh air to the franchise, I'm really not quite sure. I have also heard that the game that comes after this one, Odyssey, is like this one but much better, which I don't think would be too difficult to achieve.

Story

The story of this game is quite similar to other AC games but this being the "origins" the assassins are not yet fighting for the common good but rather for their own end, and during their own quest they find a greater purpose. The setting for the story, ancient Egypt, is very interesting and is something that has been mentioned in interviews a long time ago. As for true AC fashion, the game features some known historical figures, such as Cleopatra, who is one of the main characters in the story. 

In short I guess I could say that the story is pretty good, but it is missing a lot of the "origins" that, I don't know those were ever promised, but it is the name of the game so one would assume it would be about that. There is more about the assassins and their creed at the end of the game but this would have been a perfect opportunity to bring back the similar style recruiting that we saw in "AC Brotherhood". That was the only thing I wanted from this game and it did not deliver.

Gameplay

From the gameplay aspect we can see that whole engine, or the whole base for this game has been revamped. All the gameplay features, more or less, worked the same way in previous AC games. In this one nothing worked quite liked they used to. This is probably one of the best changes they made for this game since I don't remember seeing any bugs or glitches in this game, compared to previous AC games glitches almost seemed like a rule rather than an exception. 

The biggest issue I had with this game gameplay wise was the level system. It would not have been such an issue if the story missions were implemented more like previous games where you had to all the missions in order. Especially for people like me who like to play these games in a way that I first go through the story and if I liked the game I would go back and do the rest. This game did not allow that and it made me mad as all hell. See the problem is that there are very few actual "main story missions" and after each one of those missions you need to have gained several levels if you want to have any chance of completing that next mission. I got really angry at the game because instead of letting me play through the story, how I like it, it forced me to do other activities on the side so that at some point I could progress on the story.

One of the ways to gain levels in this game, aside from main story missions, are side missions. These are a really weird bunch, because you do not need to do these if you want to gain enough levels to progress in the game. Side missions are the fastest way, as far as I know, but they are all optional, so naturally I skipped bunch of them and only did enough of them to be high enough level to progress the main story. This again isn't even the worst issue, the worst issue is that a lot of those side quests that I did do, felt like important bits of the main story, not all of them, but most of them. So what they basically have done is, made all these missions that are part of the story, then make some of them main missions and some of them side missions. This might very well be what they did if they stared to build this game in the similar format as all the previous one, and they really should have released the missions as all being main missions because this format just did not do it for me. 

Open world

The world in this one is very interesting. You obviously know what the world is based the fact that it is set in ancient Egypt, but you need to unlock a lot of the map to actually realize what is what and where everything actually is. A big portion of the map is also, I don't know, because I did not discover maybe third of the map in my playthrough. The areas that I never went to, were too high lever for me after I had finished with the main story, and leveling up to that point had been such a pain in the ass that I did not want to do it anymore and just uninstalled the game. So a good portion of the worlds is unknown to me but the part hat I did discover fit very well into the theme of the game. 

Comparison to the previous one

The previous being AC syndicate, I definitely enjoyed syndicate a lot more. Syndicate gave me what it promised, an AC experience in Victorian England and even with all of it bugs, it was still enjoyable. Origins promised me an AC game in ancient Egypt, I made the assumption that it would also be an origins story to the assassins. It sort of was and origins story, just not very good one, and It didn't much feel like an AC game either, other than the fact that you could climb buildings and assassinate people.

The review

This was the worst AC game I have ever played, people are saying odyssey is even better and I don't doubt them one bit because it would actually quite impressive if they managed to make a worse one than this. The new engine and the setting of ancient Egypt are the only saving graces of this game. 3/10

Borderlands the Pre-Sequel

 Borderlands the pre-sequel is a borderlands game that was released in 2014, as you can maybe tell from the name, the game is set between the first and the second borderlands game but since it was released after the second game it it much more similar to that one rather than the first game. After finishing BL2 I started playing the pre-sequel, but didn't finish it until ages later so much of what I remember from this game is from the last half of the game

Story

The story of the pre-sequel is focused on the events that happened before BL2, on how handsome Jack became what he is in BL 2, and on the moon of Pandora, the planet where BL2 is set. Most of the story of the pre-sequel is a little bit different from the normal borderlands story but it very quickly deviates back to it. First you are helping out handsome Jack on his quest and after that you go right back to vault hunting, which to be honest was a bit of a surprise since I thought that there really was no need for that part in this particular game. Overall the story flows quite nice and makes sense except for the vault part that I mentioned earlier. 

Gameplay

The gameplay of the pre-sequel is very similar to that of BL2, however there are some new mechanics added to the game, on top of all the new and different guns with their own new mechanics. The main new mechanic from previous games is that there is no atmosphere on the moon so you need to refill your oxygen from time to time and can upgrade your O2 capacity with better equipment. The thing is that the O2 capacity is almost always so high that it might as well not be there, the other ways how this mechanic works is a lot fun though. The enemies also need to have an O2 mask on, and there is nothing as satisfying as shooting their mask broken and watching them suffocate. The lack of atmosphere also makes it so that whenever you loot containers all the stuff just flies out, you usually have enough time to catch the loot but sometimes it just drifts off. Other than that the main gameplay is very similar to BL2 and there isn't much to say here.'

I also got a similar feel from this game as I did from AC origins where I had to grind a buttload of side quests to be high enough level to do the main quests. Now this isn't anything new for Borderlands games and they are usually much better done, and by that I mean that the side quests are not a bother to do and you don't need to do too much of them to progress on the story. For this game it felt like it had gone to the worse direction to the point where when I approach late game I had to grind more and more and more side quests to be viable in the main quest line. Some of the side quests were also a pain to the point where I had to be above the level of the side quest to be able to complete it. For some people this might not be much of an issue, but for myself this is not fun.

Open world

You thought I forgot about the jetpack? Nope, but it's a much better fit here. See one of the new mechanics with the O2 is a jetback that jettisons O2 to work as a sort of double jump. The issue is that with the weaker gravity of the moon and a double jump, the levels also need to be built for those things in mind. If you had your general maps that you had in the previous games, you could just fly through the entire map. The map has been made so that it works better with the low gravity and a jetpack, but in the end it works worse. There are so many places that you need to reach, or you think you can reach easily thanks to these before mentioned mechanics but in the end they are almost impossible to reach or there is a completely different way that makes sense. So to put it simply, it's a nice idea but lacks a bit in the execution. 

Comparison to the previous one

I've already mentioned it a couple of times how the game is quite similar to the previous one with the exception of some new minor mechanics and a world that is more built around those new mechanics. But there is also something else that is new to this game compared to BL2. The amount of bugs is something that I've not seen in the previous games. Now I say bugs but there was really just one major bug that annoyed the shit out of me and that is when certain enemies would just fly into walls. This was specially annoying when I was downed and needed to just kill that one low health enemy, who then decides to fly into a wall and left me for dead. And this isn't something that happened once or twice. This was something that happened almost every time that there was flying enemy and a ceiling above them. So to if we do not mention the bugs, it was pretty much the same experience as BL2.

The review

Well I don't think there is much more to say on top of the things that have already been said. Pre-sequel is basically BL2 game with more bugs and some new features that frankly lacked on the execution and with some much grindier progression. Even another copy of BL2 might have been better but this game is still not horrible. 6/10

Titanfall 2

 Titanfall 2 is a game that was released in 2016 and just like the previous game, Titanfall, it pretty much flew under everyone's radar. This is a shame since it is a great game but there are plenty of rumours going around that this was intentionally done by their publisher Electronics Arts so that EA could then buy the studio cheap. 

Story

The main aspect of this game is not the story but it includes it so why not talk about it a little bit. The reason for this story to even exist really is to teach a new player the mechanics of the game and that of each different titan. The story itself is awfully cheesy to the point where you can't but help laugh out loud even on the sad bits because they are full of the same cheesy lines that have already happened a billion times in story telling and you could eat a full block of cheese and still not have consumed nearly as much as you will during the campaign for this game. But for learning the game it is incredibly useful and you really should start there if you are new to the game. 

Gameplay

So the main gameplay in this game happens in the online lobbies. The online gameplay is very similar to that of a Call of duty team deathmatch if it was on speed, crack and cocaine with the occasional chance of titans falling from the sky. The general idea of the game is like I said similar to call of duty as you are in an area with teams of 6v6 and you shoot the enemy team, that's pretty much where the similarities end. Titanfall 2's gameplay is incredibly high paced to the point where if you stay too longer than couple of seconds in the same spot, you are as good as dead, unless you know how to play sniper and dodge enemy bullets that is. In this fast paced arena combat, what you can do is nothing like any other game, at least not to this extent. You can scale large building incredibly quickly by wall jumping between buildings then jump on an enemy titan, remove their energy core, jump away, slide under a door to safety and grapple your way form the window to another rooftop at the same time as you are shooting at an enemy titan, pilot or AI grumps. A really fun and fast paced game. 

Level design

As you can imagine from a team based arena game that there is no open world but instead smaller maps that are either from the previous Titanfall game, or from the campaign. A lot of my friends said that the maps feel very samey but I personally did not feel this way. While there are a lot of restrictions how these maps can be build since you need to take into account normal sized pilots and massive titans and where they can or cannot move it can be quite challenging. I still feel like the team behind this game made a great effort to include a good variety of different maps. 

Comparison to the previous one

Can't really say much about this topic since I did not play the previous one. From what I do know is that the first game did not include a campaign, so I would assume it's a bit harder to get into and most likely most of the player base has moved to this one, so if you still aren't sure which one to buy, choose Titanfall 2 since with the addition of campaign you are sure to get more bang for your buck.

The revie

This is a game that teaches you the ropes so you don't spend too much time trying to get into the game itself. A very fast paced shooter that is a lot of fun for a long time, and is even better with friends. 8/10

Assassin's creed Syndicate

 Assassin's Creed Syndicate is an Assassin's Creed (AC) game that was released in 2015. After a long list of AC games the franchise was kind of dying down and Syndicate was said to be one of the worst ones. While this statement is kind of right, I still don't think this was a bad game. 

Story

The story was maybe one of the weak points of this game, not because it wasn't interesting but because it didn't really follow the flow of a story and for this reason felt a bit off. I feel like the story in this game had an introduction that really wasn't that long but it felt like it dragged on forever. After that was the build up to the story that seemed to start out of nowhere, and didn't really ever hit the crescendo and just kind of went straight to the conclusion. Other than that the story did have a point to it and I loved the fact that we got to explore the Victorian England and a little bit of world war 1 as well. 

The bad thing about the story is the same that has been ever since AC3 where they concluded the modern time story of Desmond Miles. After said game, the modern time stories have been random bits of whatever, not really connected to anything and might as well not be there. There has been some random references to older characters but again, nothing has come out of those references.

Gameplay

Now this was one of the better parts of this game. While the game was very much a traditional AC game, it did have something more to it. Most AC games always add a cool new gimmick and it isn't always for the best but we will touch on that later. The thing, or kind of two things that were added was the possibility to switch between two characters and both of them having their own skill trees. The way the skill trees are built basically means that you have to build the characters in a certain way, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Having two ways of playing the game, stealth and combat, and being able to switch between those two was very interesting, as compared to previous game where you only had one character and had to get everything built on that one character to even be viable, this change felt really nice. 

One other minor change that was kind of added was carts. Carts pulled by horses as opposed to just being able to ride horses as in previous games. Now there has been carts in some older AC games but they have mostly always moved in a certain path. In syndicate you can freely move with these carts and let me tell you, those physics are not quite right. 

Open world

The open world is pretty much the same as in every previous AC game, with the exception of the setting. The thing these worlds is what always amazes me is it doesn't matter the setting. They always manage to make it interesting and work well with the AC games. Like I already mentioned the carts don't really work physics wise but if they were fixed a bit, would be, and are a very nice gameplay tool that has been nicely worked into this world. 

Comparison to the previous one

Technically speaking the previous one would be AC unity. It was so long ago when I played this game that I don't remember much from it other that it being your everyday AC game just set in the french revolution. Syndicate is sort of better because of the features that I mentioned earlier. The problem with these AC games is that they just keep stacking features on top of features and the games keep getting buggier and buggier. This is a problem that has plagued AC games for quite some time but I think the games on themselves are still quite decent.

The review

As an AC game this is a solid entry but the amount of bugs in this and the weird construct of the story does bring it down a notch. If this game was bugless I could have given it an almost 8 but at this state the game is not quite there and the final score will be 7/10