Question Minh's Video Game Reviews (Spoilers Forbidden!!!)

This will be a weekly thread, being posted every Sunday Evening AEST. I will review games I have recently played, or if I haven't played anything new, talk about a particular part of a game I have played without mentioning story spoilers. My first item of this thread is the game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided


Deus Ex is a game series famous for featuring cybernetics as a primary gameplay feature. The first two Deus Ex games were set in the future of 2050 onwards. However, the third game started a prequel originating in the year 2027. In the first prequel game 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution', we are introduced to Ex-cop (and head of security for the cybernetics company called Sarif Industries) Adam Jensen. Jensen is injured in a attack on Sarif Industries, and is given extensive augmentations. He goes on to recover missing personnel absent after the attack, and unearth a conspiracy involving...the Illuminate. Yes, Illuminate Confirmed Illuminate. At the end of the game, Adam is presumed dead after the facility he is inside sinks into the ocean, and the world is wracked by a terrifying incident called 'The Aug Incident', where all augmented people go psychotic and attack everyone around them.

The next game (and the subject of this post) Mankind Divided follows Jensen again, the protagonist surviving the Aug Incident and his ocean entrapment with little issue. He is now a agent for Interpol, and again is working to uncover the conspiracy implemented by the shadowy Illuminate. While I have not completed the story as of yet, the game is a vast improvement over the previous title. The game introduces a very interactable environment, with the player being able to interact with pretty much everything. You can use a remote hacking augmentation to activate electronic devices to get around obstacles. You can hack through shutter doors and safes to get loot, and break into people's computers to read their emails and learn more about what's going on in the game world. The game introduces a crafting system, as well as experimental augmentations that grant abilities such as firing meter-long explosive swords out of your arms, tasering people, creating a invulnerable, energy consuming shield that protects you from damage, the aforementioned remote hacking and more. You can collect and modify a wide variety of weapons, as well as collect sellable components. The game keeps the RPG feel of the previous titles, while also making a variety of playstyles available. You can sneak through vents, and keep stealthy, or go full frontal and kill everything in your path. You can choose to never kill during the game, and keep to using non-lethal weapons and takedowns. The game has a huge explorable area, with hidden easter eggs, including a old cubic companion from a certain puzzle game. From what I've currently done inside the game, the gameplay mechanics are extremely well done. The graphics are excellent, although that may be because I'm playing on a PS4 with a high-res TV screen attached.

In terms of bad things, certain choices by the devs made my first few hours difficult. Unlike the predecessor, the game doesn't ease you into the mechanics, but chooses to dump you into the thick of it. Because I played the first title on mac, it wasn't as intuitive for me to play on a PS4 controller instead. As for other grievances, the tendency of the game to crash is annoying, especially when encountering cut scenes. In addition, the game doesn't give much instruction, but some people may like the lack of railroading when it comes to playing. The game seems to have some missions that were designed poorly, and tend to limit your choices. The AI is excellent, but can be distracted by throwing a fire extinguished past it. Although that is pretty realistic now I think about it. As for the sudden reset of your augs near the start....Let's just say that it really annoyed me. I had been using familiar augs into the first ten minutes, and then the game removed them to explain a mechanic.

Altogether, I'd recommend this game to anyone who likes a detailed, well-made and interesting game. Very few flaws as far as I've seen, and a beautifully made game that far outstrips it's direct predecessor, while keeping with the franchise's unique features. I'll give it 9/10 alround. Highly Recommended

And before you ask, Jayden's arm blades are inspired by this game and the previous one. In fact, his arms feature most if not all of the augmentations depicted in this game, as he visited the universe at some point

Elite: Dangerous part one



Elite: Dangerous is the fourth title in the Elite franchise, the longest-running 3D space simulation in the history of video games. The original Elite first came out more than 30 years ago, and featured some of the earliest 3D environments, albeit in low-detail wireframe. However, technology has moved on, and Elite: Dangerous is a space sim in full-detail 3D, with a full 1:1 scale simulation of our very own Milky Way galaxy.

The game centres around...well, nothing. The game is a open-world universe, featuring no story missions, and backstory found in dev-published, In-Universe news articles. The story is created by the thousands of registered players who struggle within the game's intricate galaxy simulation. The world was procedurally generated using all the available data that we have on the formation of stellar objects, the laws of physics and everything down to stellar drift. The game was then altered with overrides for systems that we have discovered and know, including out very own solar system. The game is incredibly realistic, and even has a slowly-drifting model of Voyager One, located exactly where it should be in the year 3304, when the game is currently set. So, plenty of space to work with. Heck, in the years the game has been out, no one player has been to every star in the galaxy, and less than a 100th of the game environment has been explored.

Hell, even the human race is accurately depicted. There are only a few alien lifeforms, and only one other sentient race in the ED universe. I'll get to them later. Needless to say, the only major power is the Human Race, located in a comparatively (to the scale of the entire galaxy) minuscule region of space known as 'the bubble' (named for the appearance of the inhabited areas shown on the powerplay function of the in-game starmap software). Unfortunately, I cannot provide a royalty-free image of the bubble, and I still haven't figured out the image-link function on the site. Anyway, the 'Bubble' is dominated by three superpowers, and populated by numerous independant factions, every system being vied over by multiple minor factions, all waring and struggling for control. The three superpowers are the Federation (based heavily off the USA), the Empire (based off various pre-20th century aristocracies and empires such as the Romans), and the Alliance (basically space EU/Rebel Alliance with less of the 'Rebel' bit and more of the 'Alliance' bit). They are each composed of various minor powers, lead by the eleven most influential people: Arissa Lavingy-Duval (the Empress of the Empire); Aisling Duval (Arrissa's sister, and the heir to the throne); Archon Delaine (A space pirate in charge of the Kumo Crew, one of the largest criminal empires in the galaxy); Denton Patreus (the leader of the Empire's Imperial Navy); Edward Mahon (the current Prime Minister of the Alliance, and the only Alliance power that is available for allying with); Felicia Winters (the Shadow President of the Federation); Li Yong-Rui (the CEO of the Sirius Corporation, and the leader of the space the company controls); Pranav Antal (the leader of the Utopia Movement, a massive scientific-democracy 'cult' which aims to create a perfect world, a utopia as the name suggests); Yuri Grom (a player who started a group, and is so far the only player to have a faction); Zachary Hudson (the leader of the Federation); and finally Zemina Torval (a Imperial Senator who runs a slave empire).

Part two to come soon

CrazyMinh wrote: I still haven't figured out the image-link function on the site.

It's standard BBCode. For example:

Elite Dangerous: Part 2
Getting back to ED, another great thing about the game is the ship design. Unlike other space sim MMO games like Eve Online, a lot of hard work and sweat has gone into the variety of playable ships. My main gripe with EVE (other than the difficulty to actually start playing and progressing) is that the ships look F**king terrible. Pardon my language, but their organic and stylised look is something of a pain for me to look at. While I know that starships are not restricted by aerodynamics or weight balancing due to space being a microgravity vacuum, ships still need to have some sort of logical design, and actually need to look nice. While it is not very debatable whether EVE Online has nice ships (the matter being one of opinion rather than factual debate), the fact remains that it is your choice to play such a game. Personally, I prefer Elite Dangerous's angular ships, designed with attention to detail. Every ship has it's own character: something especially aided by the rich soundscape of the game. Every ship has it's own unique character through the sounds it makes. The Type 9 heavy with its loud thrumming of the engines, the Eagle with the afterburner-esque sound when boosting forwards, the clean sound of Gutumaya vessels...every ship is beautiful to listen to. The game also does not forget other sounds. While supercruising through space, docking with a vessel or simply just sitting in the middle of a asteroid field, the game's sound design makes all of these experiences wonderful.

As for other factors, the game's vastness is not a failure when compared to more recent comparable games such as No Man's Sky (partially inspired by the Elite franchise). There is plenty to see and do, and while the game can be boring while drifting between stations, it is worth cashing out on.

However, to be critical, there is a lot wrong with the game. In addition to the aforementioned tendency towards boredom, the game is also (as of yet) unfinished. Frontier Developments is making progress, but they release features after long stretches, and many of these are 'poor man's' versions of simular features in other games. For example, the current project at the moment is the Squadrons system, allowing for player groups to be formed in-game. However, the problem with this is that the feature should have been implemented much earlier, something that has been sort of a pet gripe among the playerbase. Other features that make the game interesting are restricted to a payed update called horizons, which is only available for Windows machines. Mac players will find it hard to compete against players with access to module upgrades, multicrewing, NPC crew hire, deployable fightercraft and rovers, planetary landings and other interesting and useful stuff. In fact, these features are some of the more attractive ones that the game could have integrated, if it weren't for the fact that Apple adamantly refuses to update their graphics shader software and resources, alienating their machines from being able to play a large number of popular games.

Other issues include a large number of unresolved bugs, ones that should have been fixed before the game left its open beta (or even the closed alpha/beta for that matter!!!); a number of fatal gameplay design decisions (such as the act there is no offline singleplayer, and a rather unhelpful tutorial) and a general shortage of players due to said bugs and issues.

All in all, Elite Dangerous is a graphically beautiful game with a rich and interesting premise. The game handles the open-world design with A grades, and manages to integrate a background sim that is influenced by every player in the game. The game's numerous issues (most of them minor) are outweighed by the amazing graphical, audible and mechanical design that has gone into the making. Recommended for anyone who likes space sims, 9.5/10.

This article is intended to make up for last Sunday, when I had issues with my home internet. Later today, I will be publishing a article on the game Subnautica for today's review. Thank You

SubNautica: An Underwater Survival/Sandbox Game



When I first heard of Subnautica, it was from a well-known YouTuber called JackSepticEye. Some of you may have heard of him, or actually watched his videos. This was about a year before I actually bought the game during the early access period, and I was...well, not really that impressed. Back then, the company who made Subnautica- Unknown Worlds (the makers of the Natural Selection games and not much else)- were slowly going bankrupt from the enormous project costs of making the game. For all that money, not much was actually there. There was a basic story, just enough gameplay elements to keep me watching Jack's early videos, and other than that, nothing that made you go 'wow!!'. Apart from the fact that the entire game was set and played underwater. That's right. Under the sea.

Now that I've played Subnautica (both in the late stages of the early access on Steam, and during the full release) and I have warmed up to the game. I was open to playing before, but I would definitely call the game a favourite now. Before I get into the pros and cons, let me talk a bit about the game itself.

Subnautica is supposedly set during the 25th century, and apparently takes place in the same continuity as the Natural Selection games (which I am yet to pick up and play). You are a maintenance technician called Riley Robinson (currently only a male avatar is available, but the free DLC to be released later this year is set to add a new biome and a bunch of stuff INCLUDING a Female PC) who worked aboard the starship Aurora, a ship belonging to the 'benevolent' corporation Alterra. Your ship is orbiting a water world, when a evnt causes the gargantuan vessel to go crashing down to the planet below. You manage to escape, and your survival pod crash lands in the Safe Shallows, a region with plenty of resources and not many aggressive predators. When you awaken, you are the sole survivor of the 150 man ship.

Subnautica has it's genius when it comes to the unique take on a survival game. While there are other underwater survival games out there (most notably Stranded Deep), subnautica really makes itself known through the depth (pun intended) of its own game world. The game is open-world, and is set around a 2km by 2km circular crater, with only two landmasses above the water. The wildlife (while inspired by some real world fish/plants, and playing true to how evolution and ecosystems work on our planet) is definitely alien, with plenty of luminescent plants and fish, and with massive predators bigger than a humpback whale. The game has a wonderful soundscape, with individual species making telltale sounds that allow you (with experience) to avoid the deadly predators, and to make your way around.

Speaking of getting around, the game doesn't just expect you to swim everywhere. The first vehicle most players outside of creative will craft is the Seaglide, a handheld electric motor simular to the Sea Scooters of today. It is basically a box with grips that boosts your speed through the water, while helpfully providing a holographic minimap and a powerful flashlight. The next step up is the Seamoth, a one-person minisub which can be fitted out with anything from solar chargers to torpedo launchers. The seamoth will end up being your workhorse, kinda like pickup trucks are here in in Australia. After that comes the Prawn Suit. A pressurised exoskeleton with interchangeable arm modules, armour and a jetpack, it walks along the sea floor. It isn't the best thing though. The final mode of transportation is so large it can store a seamoth or a prawn suit inside it. Meet the Cyclops:



A two-deck sub with a bridge in the front, decoy launcher capability, customisable colouring (like all vehicles), the ability to dock other vehicles inside, plenty of storage and a variety of modules that add stuff like energy shields, docking bay repair systems, emergency fire suppression, thermoelectric charging systems- the works. The only thing it can't equip are weapons. Which brings me to my next point.

If you go into subnautica looking for a violent game, you're in the wrong place. While the game is a survival game, the only lethal weapon you really have is a survival knife, and that's more of a tool really. Sure, torpedo launchers can be equipped onto Seamoths and Prawn Suits, but there's only two types of torpedos, only one type is lethal, and that type of torpedo is both hard to manufacture and also very hard to use effectively. The developers have made it quite clear that they were trying to make a statement against violent games when they created Subnautica. You're meant to work WITH the ecosystem, not against it. Veteran players like myself will game the intricacies of the ecosystem rather that running or fighting. Sharks can be deterred with the release of prey fish, or just avoided altogether if you know how to work around them. Leviathans may be deadly, but they can be heard from long off, and there are ways to avoid them. Instead of searching wildly for resources when you can't find them, simply collect the naturally occuring ones (plants, fish), and farm them at a seabase. Did I mention seabases???


Once you get into the game, you can start building your very own underwater lair. Seabases are built from modular components that you scan via a handheld scanner to pick up. You can then add modules and furnishings to the interior. The great thing about subnautica when it comes to seabases is that rather than having the gritty industrial sci fi look or the ramshackle scrappy look that dystopian games with sandbox elements have, the seabases and structure in subnautica have a clean, white palette with clean white lighting and a sterile look. This is a departure from other sci fi games of recent years, where things look a little bleaker.

For a supposedly serious survival game set far away from civilisation, subnautica also manages to make a humorous take on the life of people in corporation-owned territory. Alterra (the provider of all your gear, tools and vehicles) is not a benevolent company like the rarer examples in video games, but a corporation that cares little for it's employees, as long as it is profiting. Their escape pods have a 9:1 failure rate, with the sole pod to actually do its job being your very own Lifepod number 5. The other 9 pods to land 'safely' all had severe faults...but that's for a article that allows for spoilers. You already know that the others didn't make it from the game's own premise, so that's not much of a spoiler anyway. Phew, circumnavigated my own rule!!! Anyway, Alterra also treats things like love as a contractual agreement, with simple relationships warranting and possibly mandating a contract. Said contract apparently details everything about the relationship, including contact hours. Did someone give Sheldon a job in the future???

Jokes aside, alterra also seem to be oblivious to your plight. Your survival PDA (your only talking companion on the world you find yourself on) constantly taunts and tortures you while you try to survive. For a supposedly helpful tablet AI, it often offers dubious advice, and occasionally seems to have it's own sense of humour. Alterra charges you for every resource you use while on the planet, as it technically owns the world due to the Aurora crash landing there. Basically, every uncaring corporation in sci fi, with the added black humour that you are at their mercy while trying to survive.

While subnautica has it's highlights, there is always the inevitable problems. The game has a distinct bugs, which while usually small and fixable can really stuff up your time in-game. Examples include clipping into your seabase and beginning to swim around inside, even though the seabase hasn't flooded due to damage. As a side note, that can be fixed by using a hatch on a Alien Containment module (a indoor aquarium that can be used to breed organisms) which causes the game to think you are 'exiting' the alien containment module, when you are actually swimming round your seabase in midair. In addition to the bugs, the game also has a tendency to load chunks of the map slower on less powerful computers. This can be a issue when you end up stuck inside a rock outcrop that loaded only when you thought everything had loaded. The biggest issue though is that the more you interact with the game world, the slower the game gets and the longer it takes to load. On high-end laptops, it can take up to five minutes to load the game with a game played for three hours or more cumulative. On low end ones...you get the picture.

Overall though, this game is possible one of the top five games I have ever played. It has a way of immersing you in its beautifully designed world of sea creatures and sunken biomes, and the game goes to depths that other small-time developers like Unknown Worlds almost never go. Hell, even big-name devs like Bethesda Softworks can't do stuff as well as UW has done with this game. For the first time in the short history of this thread, I'm giving subnautica A++ 10/10 for outstanding design, immersive gameplay and a unique premise that really succeeds at entertaining and enveloping the user in the world of Subnautica. Highly recommended for all audiences.

[Sorry, the forum spazzed out, and my post came out the wrong way. I would have started a 'Monday Miscellaneous' post that would talk about the rise of indie games. Unfortunately, the forum didn't like that, and only a small portion of the post came through. I apologise for the inconvenience].

Fallout 4



War. War never changes. Hello WU fans, and welcome to a belated instalment of Minh’s Video Game reviews. I couldn’t quite make Sunday, as we were holding a family celebration for my cousin, who just turned 19 and joined the Australian Army. While my view of the world’s militaries is not exactly charitable or favourable, I am quite proud of my cousin. I was there on the day of his birth, and I’ve seen him grow up- though I was also growing up at more or less the same time. He was very pleased with the insane amount of music I gave him on a refurbished MP3 player. Thanks to everyone who helped me pick music to add to the collection. Anyway, onto the review. Because war. War never changes...

Fallout 4 is the fifth major title in the Fsllot RPG series. It is the third title to be made by Bethesda Softworks, and the latest game chronologically. The game is set around the very same area this site’s stories are set: Massachusetts and New Hampshire, known in-game as The Commonwealth. The game starts minutes before a nuclear war. You, your wife/husband (depending on which gender you pick at character creation) and your baby son Shaun rush to the nearby Vault 111. In the fallout series, the technology advanced past the 1950-60’s (with the exception of transistor technology) resulting in flying robots, fusion power and laser rifles, but the style, culture and mindset of the era never went away. As a result, people still listen to 50’s pop music, live the American Dream, and a Cold War still rages. In response to the nuclear threat, a company called Vault Tec built massive underground bunkers called Vaults to shelter humanity if the bombs ever fell. However, the company was actually planning to run sadistic social experiments on the witless people who would flee the bombs and take shelter in the vaults. While some vaults actually did work, Vault 111 was not one of them. You and your family were placed into cryogenic suspension and left on ice for 200 years. During that time, your wife was shot by intruders and Shaun kidnaped while you were trapped in your tube.

Fallout 4 isn’t exactly the best game. The visuals are breathtaking, the environment stunningly made, and the locations varied and interesting. The game is open world, and features a cast of over 200 voiced characters with over 40,000 pieces of dialogue. There are several DLC packages which are all worth purchasing, and there is plenty to see and do. However, in true Bethesda fashion, the game is rife with bugs, bad writing and recycled assets. In fact, if you look closely enough, the game just starts to break apart with bug after bug. While mods were introduced to PlayStation, Sony did not allow the modders to import new assets, making it better to play on Pc or Xbox. In addition, the game is quite...strange in the way it railroads you away from some decisions. Players are given four faction choices to choose for the end of the game. However, one is extremely unrewarding, another is downright just morally ambiguous, another is terrorism, and the last is the only genuine ‘good’ option. For players like me who like to have endings that reward in story, moral satisfaction and loot, this is mildly disappointing. In addition, the game forces you to make painful sacrifices along the way, none of which I will state in this thread

I actually don’t have much to say about Fallout 4. While I love the game, it tends to be slightly bland in places, and downright awesome in others. I also can’t say much because spoilers. So anyway, Fallout 4 is a fun but substandard addition to the Fallout franchise. While full of bugs, it is visually appealing sand offers many hours of satisfactory gameplay. I’m going to give it 6.3/10.

Borderlands 2: This is no place for no hero


Welcome to another Video Game review from Crazy Minh. Today, we'll be looking at Borderlands 2. Don't get the title of this post wrong, there isn't a subtitle like the one above. That is simply just some of the lyrics of the opening theme. Anyway, every wanted a open world game with black humour, graphic violence, lots of badassery and bazillions of procedurally generated weapons??? Me too!!! Which is why two years ago, I first played Borderlands 2. Borderlands is set on a planet called Pandora, a dusty frontier-like world where bandits roam everywhere and mysterious alien vaults offer the promise of loot and adventure. Except when they don't. The first game introduced the concept of the Vault Hunters: powerful heroes who fight to open alien Vaults for the loot, shits and giggles. The second game introduces a whole new cast of 4 (six with two of the expansion packs (which I recommend)) vault hunters: Axton the commando (who can summon a powerful turret to blast his enemies with), Maya the siren (who can hold enemies immobile in a sphere of energy, as well as heal allies and other things), Salvador the Gunzerker (who can dual wield any two weapons for a short period of time (rocket launchers, sniper rifles assault rifles, SMG's, shotguns AND (if you're being boring) pistols. In fact, he can wield any combination of the two) and Zero the assassin (who can cloak himself and deploy a holographic decoy). The two expansion characters are Gaige the Mechromancer (who can summon a flying death robot with lasers, claws and other fun things called Deathtrap), and Krieg the Psycho (who can enter a rage like mode where he slaughters things with a buzzsaw axe).

The game combines classic RPG elements with shoot-and-loot style gameplay. You have a skill tree you can level your along, while unlocking perks along the way, and the game provides hundreds of side quests with interesting rewards. In addition, the game also procedurally generates guns (and some visual characteristics of enemies) to provide (as the game advertises) bazillions of guns. There are also four major campaign add-ons (Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep (A D&D themed add-on and the best one IMO), Mr Torque's Campaign of Carnage (A arena-based campaign where you fight through a tournament to get loot), Captain Scarlett and her Pirate's Booty (A pirate themed addon set in a desert), and Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt (hunting in a swamp with a British Gentleman)) as well as four minor addons which provide single-mission campaigns (Mad Moxxi and the Wedding Day Massacre, How Marcus Saved Mercenary Day, The Horrible Hunger of the Ravenous Wattle Gobbler, and TK Baha's Bloody Harvest).

The humour is certainly not suited for people under 17 years, and the blood, gore and adult themes certainly make the game a adult-only affair. However, the game is wonderfully comical in the way it does it's humour, and it is certainly deserving of the multiple GOTY awards it has received. I played the game two years ago and finished it. Now, I've picked it up again, and it's just as funny and playable as it was two years ago.

However, there are some gripes I have with the game. Firstly, the 'bazillions of guns' are not very exotic in what they do. You end up with reskinned versions of the same gun really. Secondly, the level cap for weapons is much lower than the character level cap. Lastly, the game's graphics are automatically lowered for machines like Macs that I tend to use.

In summary, this game is a wonderful experience deserving of the awards and praise it has received. I highly recommend buying either the GOTY edition or buying the base game and all DLC separately. I have played it for 211 hours, and haven't tired of it yet. That's really something to talk about. 10/10 A++ for general excellence and fantastic gameplay.

[In reference to Borderlands 2]

To sweeten the deal a bit, did I tell you bout Tiny Tina??? Who's basically Jade but with less frills and more explosives. Have fun!!!