Three Pillar Reviews!

Test Review #7: Detroit: Become Human!

(Played on PS4)

Highly Recommended for Immersion and Story

Great game with highly varying semi-open-ended endings.

Immersion Excellent Graphics and Direction

The graphics are truly ahead of their time, and the direction is as good as the other David Cage games. The soundtracks are also very well placed to heighten the players’ feelings of achievement, sadness etc.

A small addition that I really liked about the game is their invisible walls, only in the beginning at least; it gets annoying later in the game. In the first few hours, invisible walls appear while reminding you of your current task and that it isn’t this way. Some where in the middle of the game it got a little annoying for me because the characters stop mid walk, and it’s not apparent that they are hitting an invisible wall. So you often wonder if it’s an invisible wall or you just have to walk in a little awkward manner to pass; it’s always an invisible wall.

In the next paragraph I will talk about a specific philosophy of the game, it is spoiler-free
Something that irked me a little here is the integration of feelings in the androids. I can understand some basic feelings like prioritizing the safety of a closer person over the other, or the need for freedom and equality. But I can’t agree that androids can have deep feelings of love or loss, since they oppose logic. If you agree or disagree, I would like to hear your comments on this.

Gameplay QTEs that could completely change the outcome of the game, silence is not an option though

I like how QTEs can affect the character, (at least as far as I can tell), if you miss one you could get hurt in ways that may or may not have an effect on the story. But at the same time it doesn’t completely kill you off like it does in the recent telltale games.

There are many cases where you can prioritize going in a room over the other, it is also possible that you can proceed with a story without getting all the information. And all of these affect the story, either in a good way or a bad way.

Something you should know here is that silence is not an option in this game, unlike the telltale games. If you wait long enough you’ll see that one of the options happen as if you chose it.

Story Excellent, at least mine was

Every story differs greatly, and you can see the differences at the end of each chapter. I definitely would like to go back and see what else can happen in that game. There are chapters that you can completely miss depending on what path you chose or how you play the game.

You’ll get a range of all feelings here. Loss, love, victory, fear etc.

Something you could consider doing is that you can control the feelings you get by choosing appropriately. For example, you can have a sad ending where everyone dies, and can probably choose where they die for an extra added effect. Another example is that you try to get a perfect happy ending. Or a mixture of both. There are many possibilities here that can be done to achieve the story as how you want it to proceed.

Verdict
I can’t find a good reason not to recommend this game. Unless you don’t care about story and you just want a strong gameplay. And I assume that’s not the case with most of you.
Clearly, a lot of work has been done here. You can’t go wrong with this one.

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Have any of you guys played this game? What are your thoughts?
Any missing information I should have included or added?
What do you think of my review?
I’m thinking of making a more philosophical review (not three pillars standard) of this, but much preferable that you guys have played this first. Are any of you interested?
Let’s talk in the comments!

Coming next: you choose!

Three Pillar Reviews!

Test Review #6 :Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice!

Highly Recommended for Immersion

Took me around 7 hours to complete

Even though highly rated, I’ve heard some valid complaints about Hellblade; it might not be for everyone.

Immersion Great Lighting and camera positioning, Unique game effects, best used with headphones

Hellblade gives a great atmosphere; cinematically it is pretty well done. Lighting, acting, character design and camera positions are top notch. It provides a great deal of immersion while playing.

The lore is pretty interesting at times, you’ll have to look for them throughout the world and some are easy to miss. They are in the form of runestones that you find throughout. You usually have a set talking about a specific topic, so you might not get the full picture if you miss one of the set. Although interesting, you could easily zone out, since it’s something heard, not read, and while you wander around listening to the lore, you could get distracted by the scenery and your objective to completely pay attention.

Hellblade has highly unique effects, which some people actually found troubling and annoying. One reoccurring effect is the voices you hear while playing. You hear voices almost always and I personally found it to be an amazing experience and is why headphones are highly recommended. They use binaural recording,which is why you’ll be missing out on a great experience if you opt out of using headphones. Some valid complaints I heard about this were that the voices are too distracting/annoying while you play, and many have either stopped using headphones or decreased the volume by a great deal, which I personally do not recommend.

Other effects include illusions and other sounds and lighting to add immersion and perhaps fear from the mentally ill character you are playing as.

Gameplay linear combat that isn’t very challenging, and simplistic puzzles you can find in flash games

The gameplay in Hellblade, is not bad, but not great either. It provided a good experience overall, so I’m not complaining.

The combat is more or less linear as I said. You pick it up very quickly and it’s more of the same thing over and over again. You have a special “ability” which makes you faster against weaker enemies, and much required against stronger enemies like bosses. There are some changes like an enemy using a shield, or a faster enemy which can throw axes at you. The strategy is pretty much the same throughout though. Despite that, the combat is very immersive, and the weight of the attacks and parries feel realistic.

The puzzles on the other hand are quite straightforward and all about perspective. Most of the time you will require to visualize a certain symbol using the environment around you. Other times you require to change between “light” and “dark” to proceed further. It’s a nice change of pace between combat and puzzles, but you can find puzzles like these in cheaper games or even flash games if you wish. They are glorified versions, so they could be fun, but they shouldn’t be the focal reason of you playing it.

Story Great deal of symbolism and motive, but not the strongest aspect of the game

As you are well aware, you play as a mentally ill character, “fighting for the soul of her dead lover.” As you progress, you get to know more about Senua’s mental illness and how she was treated for it. It was more of reminiscing, and less about current stories.

Some events could feel a little cryptic, but the symbolism isn’t too cryptic to leave you wondering what is going on. You can easily play the game as is and not give it a second thought. But for our more “philosophical” readers, they would enjoy the symbolism and why Senua would see what she sees, and fears what she fears.

You’ll be able to relate a lot to Senua, regardless if you have similar experience or not. You’ll find her scared and you’ll find her determined, you’ll see the voices agree with her and you’ll see the voices berate her.

Verdict
After I beat it, I considered Hellblade to be more of an experience rather than a story or a game. There isn’t anything negative about it, it could’ve been different, but I’d rather it to be safe and good than to be risky and fail.
Given that, you might not want to play it if you feel the game could get you scared because of its effects, especially if you don’t like the voices, as I personally think it is the main reason to play the game.
If you don’t think the effects could harm you in any way, then I highly suggest you play it, just for the experience and symbolism in a mentally ill person’s perspective.
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Have any of you played the game? I haven’t played it recently, please let me know if I might’ve remembered something incorrectly.
What do you think of my review? Any vital missing information I should’ve added?
Let’s talk in the comments!

Next Up: Detroit: Become Human!

Three Pillar Reviews!

Naming in Progress :P Any better ideas or should I stick with this?

Test Review #5: RiME!

(Played on PS4)

Not Recommended for Immersion and Gameplay

Took me around 6 hours to complete

Sad but cryptic story that doesn’t hold your hand. Not a memorable experience for those without an emotional connection to the story. Feels somewhere between Abzu, Journey (PS Exclusive) and Papo and Yo, Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons, but eventually fails in duplicating any of their charm.

Immersion Skeptical feeling throughout with an unfitting music score

You find yourself in an island, not sure what to do or why you are here. You are left questioning everything this whole time and wondering what is going on. The game is too cryptic. I’m generally not a fan of cryptic games for this reason. Vanishing of Ethan Carter was also very cryptic, but it didn’t affect immersion negatively, I wanted to know more. In RiME however, I always found myself asking why am I going through with this.

From the visual design you could familiarize it with Brothers – A Tale of two sons. For some reason, I didn’t feel the design really worked for RiME. The more I played, the less immersed I felt and the more annoyed I was in general.

RiME had a decent music score, but it didn’t fit the mood of the game, I stopped a couple of times just to mentally criticize the music playing at some parts. It’s not bad in any way, just wrongly placed.

Another terrible thing that annoyed me was that the character has to shout to activate some objects, it really got on my nerves. It was cute the first two or three times, but got old super fast.

Gameplay Fair puzzles and gameplay, with a chance to get lost and some annoying backtracking

Most games give you an easier way out when you complete a location. A zipline, a cutscene, a vehicle, anything that you wouldn’t need to go back the exact same way you came from. RiME however lacks this feature. I always found myself backtracking when I go somewhere to get a key or do something to proceed further. Sometimes I just jump from the top to the bottom and I make it, but other times I die and have to take smaller jumps. Other places are more horizontal, so I would need to go back where I came from. It gets annoying at times because you know where you have to go but you don’t know the fastest way there. I got stuck somewhere for 15 minutes or so because I don’t know how to get to where I’m supposed to.

Something that could be troublesome for those who aren’t able to complete the campaign in one go is that the game doesn’t hold your hand. You will have to be attentive to the cutscenes and figure out what you would have to do next. It could take you a minute or two to figure out exactly what is going on since there are no words used in the game. If you come back to the game after a day or two (or more) you would probably forget what you had to do to solve the situation and possibly take longer than you would have if you played continuously.

Puzzles can get irritating initially since you aren’t sure what anything does but it can grow on you. They varied so it doesn’t feel repetitive, but I wouldn’t count it as something memorable.

The store page mentions the “guidance of a helpful fox”; this piece of shit is nowhere to be found whenever I needed him. But is always there barking incandescently when I’m right in front of what I have to do, discouraging me from exploring around.

Story Either a hit or miss, but the point becomes clear at the very end

Again, I’m not a fan of cryptic games in general. You spend most of the time not understanding what is happening or why it is happening. It usually proves difficult to understand what the writer/devs are trying to convey through their game. This isn’t always the case of course, there are plenty cryptic games that are wonderful and worth all the praise.

I spent most of my playthrough of RiME trying to understand the significance of this island or the events happening in it. The idea becomes clear at the end with a cutscene, but it still leaves a lot of questions when you are trying to find the resemblance between what you see in the game and what little information you get at the final few moments.

You can get a better idea of what is happening reading the 5-chapter names: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. The 5 stages of grief. (I kept them with spoiler tags in case you would like to experience it while playing.) I didn’t find out the names of these chapters till after I have completed the game. I believe if you know these chapter names beforehand you could enjoy the story much more.

Verdict

RiME’s trailers showed a lot of promise, but isn’t worth your time.

It might be emotional for those who read the chapter names above and went through similar events recently, but I think there are better games which are well directed to provide a stronger emotional impact.

There’s a reason it became free on PS+ fairly quickly.

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Have any of you guys played this game? I have a feeling that a lot of you would disagree with me here.
Any missing information I should have included or added? I placed the time it took me to complete the game at the top before the review, should I place/design it differently?
What do you think of my review? How was your perspective of the game changed after reading my review?
Any better names you can think of for my reviews or potential curator group?
Let’s talk in the comments!

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice coming next!

Three Pillar Reviews!

Naming in Progress :P You can help out too!

Test Review #4: Beyond: Two Souls!

sorry tsupertsundere :P

PlayStation Exclusive, played original version only

Recommended for Immersion

Go through a long journey of Ellen Page’s life and her erratic gift that got her into very tense and varying situations in another installment of David Cage’s cinematic games!

Gameplay Even though it’s not heavy, it goes out of its way to highly add immersion

Obviously, as a cinematic game you won’t find an action heavy game here. This isn’t a shooter or a strategy game. You are meant to be immersed in the graphics and the story. However, there are some differences that you won’t usually find in other cinematic games. I’ll get to those differences in a bit.

Firstly, let’s get QTEs out of the way. Telltale usually pops up buttons and directions on the screen to prompt you with a response, without the adrenaline this could remove from the immersion quite a bit. In Beyond: Two Souls, when it prompts you for a response time slows down and the character moves in a certain direction that you are required to move as well. This is truly intuitive to keep the cinematic feel. However, it has some drawbacks as sometimes you aren’t truly sure which way she is going and I screwed up quite a lot even though I’m usually pretty good at QTEs. Another very annoying drawback is that you can’t change brightness settings in the game, and some events are too dark to even tell what’s going on.

Interactions in the game are very straightforward and wonderfully done, again adding immersion. The way the character interacts with the environment is very natural and beautiful, the way the comments are made and items are picked up and NPCs reacting to you.

One way that the game is played differently than others in the genre is what I would like to call immersion gameplay. When you are undressing, or opening a package or climbing for example, you are prompted to push some buttons to make the interaction feel much more natural and immersive. Some would disagree and say that it is unneeded but I personally welcome it and find it to be a nice addition to cinematic gameplays in general.

Another difference in this game is the erratic gift I talked about in the intro. I won’t dwell on this topic too much in my review so you can experience it for yourself. But in here you are able to interact with the environment in a way that is not usual, and that is required for some “puzzle solving” and finding bonus items. The “puzzles” are very straightforward and generally won’t take much of your time.

Story Slightly above average and varying in vibes which also includes slice of life parts

The game itself is cut into small parts that form up story. In the PS4 version, they have added a chronological way to play the game instead of the original way.
These small parts are pieces of Jodie’s (the character) life ranging from when she was a kid to a teenager to an adult.

The original version scatters these parts throughout the game, so in one part you’re stranded and walking in a tense situation as an adult and then the next part you see yourself getting some oil from the garage for your mother as a child. This is where the controversy occurs, a lot of players complained that they are left confused and not able to follow through with the story properly. That’s why the chronological version was added. I have only played the original version but I don’t think I will go back to play the chronological version. The controversy can hold true, I also found myself a little confused with the timeline of these parts when I try to piece them together. But generally I was able to follow through. There are some skills you unlock and that’s why the original version is done that way. I would assume the build-up would also be different than the chronological version.

Now let’s get into the illusion of choice and how it affects the story. The story was made in a clever way, in which you actually get to see some effects happening when you make a choice, but that usually does not have any effect in other parts of the story. You can make a decision with a very big impact but you don’t usually see it referenced in other parts. I could be wrong though, my playthrough didn’t have a major effect that I would expect it to be referenced in other parts. It happened in one case but I’m not quite sure if that event was supposed to happen or not.

The real story comes towards the end, where it is pretty chronological there. It’s a little tense but if you would think about it it’s very short. You can easily tell the story isn’t the strong pillar here. Like a very mediocre movie you’d watch at home.

Immersion Incredible realism and acting that was way ahead of its time

If you still seem interested in the game after reading the other two pillars then definitely get the game.
There are very few glitches here, and totally not game-breaking or annoying in any way. Just an NPC smoking with a cigarette a meter in front of him.

Graphics in this game compete with games that came in this year. All the characters’ acting are well-performed without a hint of any doubts. It would be quite hard not to fall for Ellen Page in this game if you hadn’t already!

As I also previously mentioned, the gameplay is designed in such an incredible way that really adds to the immersion and have the whole experience feel natural. It would’ve been much better though if the settings allowed you to change the brightness level as there were some scenes that I wasn’t able to view properly especially with the QTE sequences.

Verdict
Basically speaking, if the game sounds and looks interesting to you, it wouldn’t hurt to play it.
If you are expecting a story as good as Heavy Rain’s however, you could end up disappointed.
Ellen Page really did a wonderful job acting in this game, all facial expression were done very naturally as if you are watching a movie.

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Have any of you guys played this game? How accurate was I in my review?
What did you guys think of my review in general? Anything I should add or remove for my next one?
Is there any question left unanswered after you read my review?
Should I have added more information in the story? Or do you believe it is enough to judge based on what I wrote?

What would you like to hear about next: RiME or Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice?

I played Hellblade a few months back, but I think I remember enough to write a pretty good review for it

Three Pillar Reviews

Naming in progress :P

Test Review #3: Far Cry 5!

Played on PS4. Single-player only

Recommended for Gameplay and Immersion

Wonderful World. Wonderful Characters. Wonderful Graphics. Wonderful Gameplay. Wonderful Cinematics. The story leaves much to be desired however.

Immersion Almost Perfect with some mild annoyances.

Even with the PS4 Pro, this game looked amazing; the acting and voice acting, were very immersive. The characters have deep personalities and charisma.
There are some physics bugs, but nothing too surprising with the history of the franchise and similar games. Nothing game-breaking either.
It really hits all the right marks here. Immersion was so good here, it actually surprised me in a specific cutscene that I would have never expected any game to do, and I believe it was very well done even though it can be considered “risky”

Image below is from a screenshot that’s in the first two minutes of the game

Gameplay The changes here are very welcoming and it is less “chorey” than it’s predecessors.

If you played Far Cry 3 or 4, you will find the exact same base gameplay: liberate outposts, save hostages, kill the oppression, you pretty much have the same weapons, takedowns, etc. But they have added guns-for-hire, these are partners that help you out on your missions and just wrecking some shit up. (Except for story missions, more on that in a bit) You can recruit up to 3 fighters you find in the world, or do some special missions to unlock the 9 specialists that are able to help you. Each of these specialists have their own set of skills and weapons. I’m sure you have seen the dog in the trailers, he can mark the enemies for you. There is another guy who comes in with a fighter plane that is quite helpful when you are pinned down. And a woman that uses a bow and arrow to help you stealthily sneak around and finish off the cultists. Initially, you are allowed to have one gun-for-hire by your side, but after you unlock 3? specialists you will be able to buy a perk that allows you to have two guns-for-hire with you. So you can mix and match! My personal favorite were the dog and the woman with the bow and arrow.

That takes us to the perks. In the previous games you had to liberate outposts, perform takedowns, etc to gain exp and that allows you to get perks. You had to kill and skin a lot of animals just so you can have more bows/ammo on your person. They removed all of that here, now if you want perks you’ll have to get perk points, which you get by getting achievements like killing X number of cultists, or skinning Y of this kind of animal, or having your gun-for-hire kill Z number of people etc. So you could be able to unlock (almost) every perk before going in with the story!

So, if you don’t get exp from liberating outposts, then what are they good for?
Well you don’t get exp but you do get Resistance points. And you require certain amount of resistance points to proceed with the story.
There are only a few of story missions here, but they are also forced. What I mean by that is once you pass that amount of resistance points needed for a story mission you get dragged from wherever you are or whatever you are doing and forced to do a story mission that you are not able get out from. It could be a little frustrating at times if you are in a middle of another mission you are about to complete. But don’t worry there aren’t many of them in this game.

The map is divided into three regions, each led by a lieutenant, and you will have to defeat all three before you could go for the cult’s leader. You don’t have to do it in a certain order and you don’t even have to complete a region before going to the next. You can just jump in and out and do whatever missions or outposts you fancy.
Each of the regions have their own feel to them, own resistance meter, and they also each have three specialists that you can unlock. My best suggestion to start the game is by unlocking all 9 specialists first so you’ll have the chance to take a look at each region/lieutenant and figure out how you would like to proceed with the game.

A small annoying issue I faced a couple of times was that when I’m flying a plane or a helicopter and end up dying I respawn in the middle of the air in the helicopter/plane instead of the ground. Now that’s good and all but the actual problem is that you respawn while the engine is turned off, so more often than not you won’t have enough time to gather your momentum to continue you flying before hitting the ground and damaging your vehicle and/or dying yet again. This might have been solved in a later update or patch however, I have played this on the PS4 and I don’t believe I have updated anything when I started.

Oh I forgot to mention! You don’t have to climb as much radio towers here!

Story Immense potential that is wasted by a lack of character arcs and purpose

Personally, I really love stories that revolve around politics or religion, they have incredible potential that can’t be found in others. And a story that revolves around a cult is just something that can go over the roof! The two endings were very well made and I really loved them both. The father’s personality and aura is powerful and keeps you interested in what he has to say.
Unfortunately, while the characters did have a deep personality in them, Ubisoft did not really fully utilize this potential.

One thing that was missing and needed was the lieutenant arcs, three regions with three lieutenants, you do get to know more about them while you are in their regions but it doesn’t feel enough. Some cutscenes tell you a little about their past but then again they raise more interesting questions. Not being able to feel closure once you have completed a region.

Now, the worst aspect of the game is that you don’t really know what ideals the cult has. The misconception I might have created to fill in the blanks contradict with some elements seen in the game. You might understand why the cult is trying to get more followers, but you couldn’t understand why they try to kill and force non-followers as well.
The question of why would they do this pops up a lot in my mind even towards the end.
This makes it very hard to have any feeling about the cult, which could also have a lingering effect in your ending.

I have watched Inside Eden’s Gate, a prequel 30-minute video that is supposed to tell you more about the cult. Even though it did help emphasize what they are trying to do, it still didn’t answer the questions I have raised when I was playing the games.

Verdict
Far Cry 5 is an amazing installment to the series and to the FPS Genre as a whole. With two very solid pillars and good third, you have a lot on the table to play and enjoy the game. Even if story has an issue or two I still think of it as a nice experience.
It’s not a must play however, because of its wasted potential.
If you loved the earlier Far Cry games and you think you need to play another, then yes you should play this as you will greatly enjoy it.
If you tried the earlier Far Cry games and you didn’t think it was interesting then you can avoid this one as its story doesn’t fully redeem it.
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Have any of you guys played this game? How accurate was I in my review?
What did you guys think of my review in general? Anything I should add or remove for my next one?
Is there any question left unanswered after you read my review?
Do you like the new addition “Recommended for Gameplay and Immersion”? I could do more reviews like that eg “Not Recommended because of Gameplay and Story” etc. What do you think?
I want to write a little more about the story, but I also believe that it’s best to know as little as possible when you start a game. How can I write enough about the story without implicating anything to my audience?

What would you like to hear about next: RiME or Beyond: Two Souls?

I need to make a nice catchy name for my three pillars reviews. Maybe a curator name as well? What do you guys think?

For now let’s take a look at my second systematic review:
(Again this is all very experimental as I’m trying new things and I very much appreciate and look forward for your feedback!)

The Fidelio Incident

Recommended with Precautions

The Fidelio Incident is a walking simulator following a plane crash in which you’ll have to look for your wife, you uncover more about your past as you walk through this cold freezing island.

Story Interesting and maintains your curiosity throughout the game (7/10)

I really don’t want to talk too much without spoiling what to expect. But I was interested throughout and I was not disappointed at all. It’s not something that will blow your mind, and the character development can be seen throughout journal pages written by your wife.

Gameplay Nothing special but it’s not a chore either (5/10)

Decent gameplay, you won’t feel lost, nothing difficult to induce rage quitting. Puzzles aren’t thought provoking: you find a hurdle, you walk around for a bit and find the thing you would need to pass through the hurdle. In this cold island you would need to keep yourself warm, in order to do that you walk nearby steam or fire from the debris of the plane. If you’re too far from steam of fire, the screen slowly starts to “freeze” starting from the border, and the closer the cold comes to the border of the screen the less time you’ll have before you die of hypothermia basically. Very straight-forward and clearly not the highlight of the game, but better than a simple walking simulator with no gameplay eh?

Immersion Potential technical difficulties and poor map design
(I removed the score here because of the next paragraph below)

This is where the precautions sets in. I played this on my secondary laptop which has a 930MX graphics card, i5 6th gen processor and 6GB RAM. It is well above the minimum requirements, but even with low anti-aliasing and low quality graphics, I still had a lot of frame rate jumps. towards the end I couldn’t get anything above 10 fps while throughout it kept jumping from 15-40 fps. I fought through it but it was a pain. I don’t think everyone will face this issue however, I did not see a lot of reviews mentioning this.

Another thing was the map design, as part of the gameplay as I mentioned above you’ll need to keep yourself warm, and there were valves to open up steam mehcanisms so you can walk over there and warm yourself up. More often than not they were randomly misplaced and doesn’t really have a greater purpose other than warming you up. What is worse is the placement of the plane debris and crash overall. They’re very far apart and you can’t help but wonder how the hell did this guy crash this badly.

The good part are the graphics, the games uses unreal engine 4, and the environment and atmosphere feels great. Voice acting was also pretty well done in my opinion except for one small character at one small point in the game.

Verdict
The Fidelio Incident is a decent game, but not a must play in no means. I was not disappointed and the story was pretty interesting as well. If you think you can somehow avoid the technical difficulties (like apparently most people did) and you feel like playing a short walking simulator, this wouldn’t be a bad choice to pick up really. It’s worth about 2-3$ in my opinion.

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Have any of you guys played this game? How accurate was I in my review?
What did you guys think of my review in general? Anything I should add or remove for my next one? Don’t spare any detail, you’ll help me refine my next reviews!
Is there any question left unanswered after you read my review?
I personally think I should change the order of the pillars based on the game and not keep it systematic throughout, do you guys agree?
Oh don’t forget to help me come up with a name for my review method/curator group!

Next up: Far Cry 5

Guys I’m tempted to start writing reviews in a more serious manner.

I have a “theory” that focuses on three main standpoints. Story, Gameplay and Immersion. Applies to SinglePlayer Campaigns

I’d call them the three pillars of single player campaigns. Hear me out and let me know what you think.

Story is straight-forward: main plot, character development, twists and turns etc.
Gameplay is just as straight-forward: how smooth is the gameplay, funfactor stays throughout the game or does it feel repetitive and boring after a while. Any new powers/skills you obtain later to keep you interested. etc. It is not only considering combat, but puzzles, and process of completing a task etc.
Immersion is purposely named vaguely because every game plays and feels differently. For example there are games that does not have voice acting but is still very solid with attracting the player, so it would be unfair to take off voice acting points from a game that is not supposed to have it. Immersion could include many topics like sound, atmosphere, lore (lore is a separate from story because, again, not all games have lore), graphics, music etc.

For a game to be considered good, you’d expect it to have at least a passing grade in each of these pillars (6/10),but I also believe that you would be able to have a very good game if you are excelling in two but lacking in one. Like Alan Wake for example, in which it had a very compelling story and immersive atmosphere, but its combat was subpar at best. It is still a really good game that I would want to go back and replay in the future, knowing that its gameplay could feel like a boring chore most of times.

I like this system because it also allows me to be harsh when reviewing games. For a test review I averaged the three grades so it would be out of 10, but I personally believe it shouldn’t be like that. I could just add them up to be out of 30, but I thought it would bring unnecessary complaints from reviewers. What do you guys think I should do for the final rating?

Here’s a test review for Rise of the Tomb Raider:

Not Recommended.
As gorgeous and well optimized as the game is, it falls short in other areas which makes it not a very worthy title.
Immersion. (9/10)
Again, the game is extremely well optimized and absolutely beautiful graphics that are almost unmatched. I haven’t seen a game as optimized as this on steam.
Lara sharing her thoughts when on base camps is also a very nice touch in general as you get to have a moment to bond with the character per se.
The nature and atmosphere is also well above average, however after a while you feel it gets a bit repeated and tedious. (sliding down a dangerous cliff and having lara use her pickaxe at the last minute, or whenever lara tries to go through tight spaces)
Gameplay. (6/10)
There is nothing too special about the gameplay here. It tries to copy the adventuring and combat style of the Uncharted Series while also trying to copy the atmosphere and hunting of the Far Cry series. Basically failing in both aspects.
I was very close to just dropping the game but a new pickaxe upgrade kept me a little interested towards the end that I just completed it.
The optional challenges/caves/tombs are nice, they are very creative with their puzzles. However, the rest of the gameplay wasn’t good enough for me to go and complete them all.
Story (2/10)
Generic plot, several plot holes, no character development, obvious “twists”, boring historical background, ends in a pretty shitty cliffhanger that doesn’t make you anticipate the next one.

The best thing about the story/game was the Baba Yaga DLC, but even then the “twist” was painfully obvious.

Verdict (5.7/10)
Nothing really is strong enough that you’d want to finish the game. Even with incredible optimization and graphics, there are better experiences out there that you can waste your time on.
Play Uncharted series instead, as this feels like a washed up version of that.

What do you guys think of the way I reviewed the game?

I know I might’ve reviewed the game a little harshly, and I feel that I didn’t write enough. I really would love to hear your thoughts. What are important topics you look for in a review? Is this enough for you to make a decision or I should have wrote more/or focused more on an aspect? Do you agree with my three pillars? Should I average the three pillars or should do you have a better idea? Any and all comments are welcome! Please share!

So I put the marking items as not interested on hold a while ago, and started two new projects.
First, I managed to reach 3x items marked as not interested as I have items on wishlist:

I managed to surpass my initial goal of 2 with flying colors.

So my first new project is hiding all the games from family sharing that I know I wont play. (ie trash games) and I managed to hide 2439 games so far. And the games that are not hidden now are 4634 (mine and from family sharing)
This also helped me with my other project which is reviewing my previously wishlisted games, since I had some early access games that were probably abandoned or games that didn’t have reviews for years.
The new improved wishlist system by steam is making it much easier for me to go back and remove most of my stuff from wishlist, so I’m grateful with that.

What do you guys think? Do you guys approve of my projects? What do you guys think of the new updated wishlist system?

The Danganronpa series are a masterpiece!
Even the prequel novel I read made me tear up at work! The lore of the series is truly amazing and I would consider it to be unmatched and of the richest stories/lores ever.
I’m sad that Danganronpa V3 isn’t on sale for the lunar year. And that’s the only thing I need to be update with everything, but reviews say that the ending ruined the ending, so I’m a little worried.

Anyone here tried them out recently? Please share your thoughts!

What did you guys think of Crash N Sane Trilogy?

Heard that it was “hard” but I don’t think that is the right word for it. The original trilogy wasn’t nearly as hard. I just booted it up and it got me frustrated in less than an hour.
A hard game would be cuphead, but the trilogy just seems very off for a platformer. I didn’t enjoy it and it completely killed the nostalgia for me. Wondering what you guys think.