Thursday, November 23, 2023

Tomb Raider Anniversary (PC) Review

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a beautifully remade version of the classic 1996 game. It features modernized controls that are very much like Tomb Raider Legend, and while the majority of the game excels, subpar boss battles detract from the experience. The game's remastered visuals are fantastic, and the developers took some minor creative liberties with the level design, making the game better for it. I thoroughly enjoyed playing through iconic levels such as The Lost Valley, Palace Midas, and St. Francis Folly. The Tomb Raider Legend engine holds up very well.

Navigating the intricate tombs and solving puzzles remains the highlight of the Tomb Raider experience. The developers have managed to retain the essence of the original's challenging puzzles while incorporating smoother controls. The platforming elements, a core aspect of the series although not perfect, feel responsive and engaging.

The audio design preserves the original sounds and enhances nostalgia, but the soundtrack becomes obnoxious during some boss battles.

Boss battles in this game are simply awful. The combat mechanics overall are not great, and the boss battles are even worse. The biggest issue is the adrenaline dodge mechanic, which is necessary to defeat a boss. This involves dodging an enemy that is running towards you, and when the circle turns red, you have to press fire to damage the enemy. Without activating this dodge, it is impossible to win, no matter how much you shoot at the boss. I faced this issue while trying to kill the big mutant boss in Atlantis and had to give up on the game, as I tried everything from reducing graphics, lowering FPS to lowering the resolution, but nothing worked. This is beyond poor game design. This means that no further progress can be made.

There are some technical issues with Tomb Raider: Anniversary on PC, particularly related to the game's FPS. If the game is running at a frame rate higher than 60 FPS, some aspects of the game may not work as expected. To resolve this issue, I had to limit the frame rate to 60 FPS using RTSS.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary is was a good game overall. It managed to capture the essence of the original game quite well, but the boss battles tarnished the game. They were disappointing and felt like a blemish on an otherwise well-crafted experience. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete the final two boss fights due to technical issues. While I only paid $0.98 for the game, I feel that it was worth the price. However, I wouldn't recommend spending more than that on it.

Verdict - A great adventure marred by awful boss battles.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (PC) Review

I had planned to write an extensive review of Red Dead Redemption 2, but before I do, let me just say that if you enjoy open-world games with excellent graphics and haven't played this game yet, then stop reading and buy it now. I would hate to spoil the joy of discovering what this game has to offer.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a sequel-prequel to the original game, and based on my experience, it surpasses its predecessor in every aspect. Unfortunately, the original game was never released on PC, denying PC gamers the chance to experience it. Despite the latest remaster of Red Dead Redemption not being available on PC, I'm glad that Rockstar decided to release Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC.

I played the Steam version of Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2023 on a powerful machine with an i7 12700k processor, GeForce RTX 3080Ti graphics card, and 64GB of RAM, running at 3440x1440 on the highest graphics settings. The game ran smoothly at mostly 60-70FPS with DLSS set to Quality. For those with less powerful machines, I recommend enabling DLSS, as this game is resource-intensive.

The game's visuals are stunning, with its open-world environment spanning different settings, from snowy mountains to great plains, redwood forests, swamps, and the desert landscape of the Southern United States and Mexico. The weather system adds to the immersion, such as riding your horse on the great plains during a thunderstorm. In terms of visual design, Red Dead Redemption 2 surpasses even The Witcher 3.

However, it's not just the visuals that make this game great. Its level of interactivity, side quest design, variety of gameplay, interesting characters, and Easter Eggs contribute to the overall experience. Rockstar's talent is evident when compared to other open-world games, such as those created by UbiSoft, which lack the same level of creativity and originality.

Despite the amount of focus given to creating a stunning open world, one might assume that Rockstar overlooked the importance of the game's storyline. However, this is not the case. The game's story is well-crafted and engaging, which is no easy feat considering the campaign is over 50 hours long. The voice acting is arguably the best I have ever experienced in any video game, even surpassing that of The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. While I won't delve into the specific details of the story, I can assure you that it is exceptionally well done, with one of the most memorable final acts I've experienced in any game to date.

While the game is undoubtedly impressive overall, there are certain areas where it falls short, especially on the PC. The UX design feels subpar and gives the impression that it was created by someone who has never played games on a computer before. The menu navigation is frustrating and overly complicated. To switch between weapons, you need to hold Tab and press Q and E, which is a poor design choice. It would have been better to use an inventory option similar to that for items that you are carrying instead of the clunky weapon wheel.

The game has some mechanics that are quite unusual, especially the weapon system. As a player, you have two slots for long guns - the shoulder slot and the back slot. However, when you are riding a horse, the character puts away the weapons, and they become "horse weapons". When you dismount from the horse, the weapons should teleport back onto you, but sometimes that doesn't happen. This can be frustrating, especially when you need to quickly engage enemies and you realized that you no longer have the weapons you previously equipped. It would be easier if the weapons stayed on your person all the time. It's unclear why this feature was added to the game in the first place.

Customizing your outfits is another clunky mess of navigating multiple menus, and then having to store these outfits on the horse. Why? Other games have solved this problem. There was no reason to try and reinvent the wheel here.

A lot of effort appears to have gone into making animation for simple actions, and while impressive at first, they can become repetitive and dull after several hours of gameplay.

There is also no quick save. Thankfully there is a manual save option, but that doesn't quite work the way one might intuitively think it might. The lack of quick save option is unacceptable for an open-world game.

To add insult to injury, you need to create a Rockstar account to play the game, which launches via the Rockstar Game Launcher after launching the game via Steam. This double DRM process needs to be eliminated. There is no good reason for game companies to require paying customers to jump through hoops to play a game. Pure corporate greed.

I am definitely nitpicking here with my complaints (except for double DRM which is just the worst), because in spite of these annoyances, I played this game for over 190 hours, and I am still not done yet. There are more places to explore, and more animals to hunt, and bounties to collect.

The last Rockstar game I played was GTA IV, which I hated due to the atrocious requirement of Games For Windows Live and other technical issues with the PC port. I had very little hope for Red Dead Redemption 2 on the PC, but despite their best efforts, it turned out to be a fantastic game. Now, I am eagerly waiting for Red Dead Redemption 3, which I hope to play in 2030.

Sunday, November 5, 2023

Handbreak Settings for ShadowPlay Recordings

I record a lot of gameplay footage using Nvidia ShadowPlay. I play most games on my ultrawide monitor at a resolution of 3440x1440. At times, the file sizes can balloon up to over 10GB with a target bit rate is 50Mbps.

In an effort to reduce the storage size, and not to have to upgrade my hard drive, I decided to explore Handbreak to compress and encode some of the videos I recorded. After doing some research, here are the settings I picked, which seem to find the right balance between compression and quality.

In the Summary tab, check the Web Optimized option.

In the Dimensions tab, set the target video resolution, which for me is 3440x1440.

For Audio, I went with mp3 codec and set the gain to +5

The settings on the Video tab might require some tweaking based on the desired quality. In this specific example, I encoded an 8.92 GB video down to <>. The important things that affect the quality of the produced video are these -

- Video Encoder - H.265 10-bit (NVEnc)
- Framerate - Same as source
- Encoder Preset - Slowest
- Constant Quality - 28

Using the CPU to do the encoding is extremely slow compared to NVEnc encoder. The quality difference between CPU encoding and NVEnd encoding is not discernible to me, and it is also not very taxing on the system.

Constant Quality vs Average Bit Rate

I debated between using Avg Bitrate and Constant Quality. Turns out that Handbreak recommends using Constant Quality over Average Bitrate.

Constant Quality vs Average Bit Rate

It appears that the recommended way of doing things is by using Constant Quality over Average Bit Rate. I did however notice that there are situations where Average Bit Rate is preferable to using CQ, such as when encoding a video file, and I am not particularly concerned about preserving quality as reducing the file size. I tend to look at the existing bit rate, and then perhaps target 30% of it.

The following video is a ShadowPlay recording which was encoded using the above settings.

Here is the encoding log. The entire job took around 30 minutes.

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Frontlines Fuel of War (PC) Review

A game with massive potential that sadly never lived up to it.

Frontlines Fuel of War tells the story of a world in conflict between Western Alliance and Red Star Alliance forces. The game takes place in Turkmenistan, and moves into Moscow towards the end.

This is a typical mid 2000s modern military shooter. I never had the chance to play multiplayer and the single player is very average with blurry textures, very poor weapon handling, thoroughly forgettable story, bad voice acting and bad enemy AI. There are mechanics in this game that are better than an average Call of Duty campaign such as open ended levels, and vehicles etc. but it is very hard to get past the mediocrity of the rest of the game.

I can’t stress enough how poor weapon handling is. There are two viable weapons, the sniper and the shotgun, this is because everything else is terrible. There are also drones that can be controlled by the player, which make an interesting addition to the game.

Vehicles are surprisingly good. Tanks, LAVs and even an attack chopper are quite fun to pilot.

At the current full price of $19.99, I cannot recommend it.

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Infinite Backlog

As of Sunday September 17, 2023, I am looking at the games I own, and it is clear that I will not be able to finish or even play all of them in my lifetime. So I decided to make a list of games that I intend to finish or at least give my best shot.

I have 111 games listed in my backlog. It appears as if it will take 111 days of playtime to finish all these games. I am not sure how I am going to playthrough all these games, and also fit in Halo: Master Chief Collection, Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty, and the next Battlefield game.

The stats show that the most single player games I completed in a single year is 17, in 2009. At that rate, if I play nothing else except the games on the list, it will take me six and a half years to finish this backlog. Probably right in time for Red Dead Redemption 3!

How can I ever justify buying any new games when the backlog is as massive as this? I still want to buy Halo: Master Chief Collection and do another playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 with Phantom Liberty.

  • Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China
  • Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India
  • Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia
  • Assassin's Creed Odyssey
  • Assassin's Creed Origins
  • Bastion
  • Batman: Arkham City GOTY
  • Batman: Arkham Knight
  • Batman: Arkham Origins
  • BioShock 2
  • Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain
  • BloodRayne
  • Borderlands
  • Borderlands 2
  • Borderlands 3
  • Borderlands: Game of the Year
  • Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
  • Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
  • Burnout Paradise
  • Call of Juarez
  • Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
  • Cities XL Platinum
  • Colin McRae Rally
  • Company of Heroes 2
  • Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition
  • Dead Space
  • Death Stranding
  • Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge
  • Desperados III
  • Desperados III: Money for the Vultures - Part 1: Late To The Party
  • Desperados III: Money for the Vultures - Part 2: Five Steps Ahead
  • Desperados III: Money for the Vultures - Part 3: Once More With Feeling
  • Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
  • Dishonored
  • Dishonored 2
  • Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
  • Doom Eternal
  • Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition
  • Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
  • Dying Light
  • F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
  • F.E.A.R. 3
  • Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition
  • Fallout: New Vegas - Ultimate Edition
  • Far Cry 4
  • Frontlines: Fuel of War
  • Full Spectrum Warrior
  • Grand Theft Auto V
  • Grim Dawn
  • Hard West
  • Helldorado
  • Hidden & Dangerous 2
  • Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
  • Hitman
  • Hitman: Blood Money
  • Homefront: The Revolution
  • James Bond 007: Blood Stone
  • Just Cause 4
  • Mafia
  • Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
  • Middle-Earth: Shadow of War
  • Mirror's Edge: Catalyst
  • Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition
  • Moto Racer 2
  • Murdered: Soul Suspect
  • Need For Speed Heat
  • Need for Speed: Most Wanted
  • PC Building Simulator
  • Planescape: Torment
  • Prey
  • Prince of Persia
  • Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
  • Project: Snowblind
  • Psychonauts
  • Rage 2
  • Red Faction: Guerrilla - Re-Mars-tered
  • Rise of the Tomb Raider
  • Risen
  • Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood
  • Saints Row IV: Re-Elected
  • Saints Row: The Third
  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider
  • Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
  • Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition
  • Soma
  • Star Wars: Battlefront II
  • Star Wars: Empire At War - Gold Pack
  • Subnautica
  • The Darkness II
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition
  • The Lord of the Rings: War in the North
  • The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition
  • Thief
  • Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition
  • Titanfall 2
  • Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
  • Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
  • Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
  • Tomb Raider: Underworld
  • Torchlight II
  • Trine 2
  • Tropico 4
  • Tyranny
  • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
  • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
  • Watch Dogs 2
  • Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
  • X-Men Origins: Wolverine
  • XCOM: Enemy Unknown
  • Yakuza 4

I am currently playing Red Dead Redemption 2 (absolutely amazing game) on my main machine, and Tomb Raider Anniversary on my auxiliary machine. I am making steady progress in Tomb Raider, and I think I should be able to finish it in a week or so. My next game is going to be Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It appears that it doesn't take too long to complete this.

Alternatively, I just don't pay any attention to any of this and just play what I feel like, and not worry about the massive backlog.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Half-Life: Blue Shift (PC) Review

Well worth the $0.50 I paid for it.

A thoroughly functional game, which does not outlast its welcome. It tells a concise story, and it fills in the gaps of the main Half-Life game. It took me a little under 4 hours to finish Blue Shift.

Technically, it is competent, but the original Half-Life engine has aged poorly. It worked fine at 2560x1440 resolution, but the game looks dated. I found it hard at times to distinguish textures that are meant to be interactive, because of how blurry the textures are at the resolution I am playing. I had to refer to the walkthrough a couple of times because I missed a switch that was right in front, but I did not identify it because textures tend to blend with each other.

The story follows Barney Calhoun, a security guard at Black Mesa. The events of Blue Shift run parallel to the events of Half-Life. The player gets to witness the chaos from a different perspective. Those that care about the Half-life story will find the story of Blue Shift interesting.

After 17 years of first playing Half-Life, I finally completed all the PC releases (not including the VR title).

To fans of the Half-Life franchise, I recommend this game at a deep discount. I do not recommend paying the full price. It’s not on par with the other expansion - Opposing Force, from a gameplay and story perspective.

Monday, July 3, 2023

SUPERHOT (PC) Review

I heard about this game when it was released back in 2016. It looked interesting but I didn't want to buy it because I wasn't entirely sure if I would like it.

7 years later, as I was looking through my game collection, I saw that I owned this game on Amazon. I am not sure how. I know I never purchased it. Now there is no excuse, and I must play this very interesting game.

I am won't dwell too much on the story. I think its pretty good, which is rare for a video game. I often do not care about video game stories, but this is a rare exception. In terms of being memorable, it's up there with Portal for me.

From a game play perspective, I don't think another game like this exists. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Considering how saturated the video game market is, this is an achievement that must be celebrated.

Time moves when you move, it is as simple as that and this idea can be used to create a lot of interesting scenarios.

Superhot is a very minimalistic game. Only the bare necessities of what makes a shooter is kept, and everything else is discarded. The color palette is very minimal as well.

There are situations where the bright flashing lights is very jarring. I do not recollect seeing an epilepsy warning, because if there was ever a game that needed it, it would be this.

Scenarios can vary between easy and super complex, requiring several retries. Despite this, the game is not very long. I think I finish it in about 4 hours.

As of this writing, Superhot is on sale at a 70% discount for $7.49. I wouldn't not recommend this game for the price. Witcher 3 is on sale for $9.99...the gameplay time to price ratio is just not lining up for me, but sometimes, it might be OK to ignore the value proposition for a game that is nothing like any other.

Verdict - It's the most innovative shooter I've played in years.

Friday, June 30, 2023

Alan Wake Review (PC)

A Sign of Things To Come

I played the regular PC version of the game released on Feb 16, 2012 (according to Steam). I understand that this game is beloved by many, and I am not trying to be a contrarian. I enjoyed Alan Wake, but in my opinion, the only thing great about this game is the atmosphere. For a game that is released over a decade ago, the visuals hold up very well. I played this game on an ultrawide display (3440x1440) and I had absolutely no issues whatsoever. Fantastic.

Everything else is average at best.

The combat is the weakest part of the game for me. I don't know how Remedy went from the smooth combat of Max Payne to the clunky mechanics of Alan Wake. Shooting feels weak, movement is awkward, and enemies are boring. The game even gives up on the enemies and just starts throwing furniture at you - literally. The slow motion dodge got very repetitive and very annoying. I went into this game expecting something akin to Max Payne and I got this clunky mess instead.

In addition to this, their idea of creating an atmospheric game is to make visuals blurry to the point where it caused eye strain at times when I light a flare. Is this a deal breaker? No, but when combined with all the other things, it certainly doesn't help.

The developers try really hard to draw your attention to whatever it is that they want to show you, which results in taking the control away from the player, and showing you an in-game cinematic. As I said, this is a sign of things to come for their next game - Max Payne 3, which takes this annoying mechanic to a whole new level of awful.

I know I am 10 years late to the party, but it doesn't change the fact that there are things about the game that are annoying.

I would recommend this game if you can find it for under $5. I think anything more than that would be overpaying for it.

+ Fantastic atmosphere
+ Voice acting
+ Technically competent

- Boring combat
- Repetitive enemy design
- Very clunky movement
- Weak weapons
- Blurry visuals at times

Verdict - Average game.