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Recent reviews by TheGreyFox
91.3 hrs on record
So, here's a simple review that true fans will hate. It looks better than the PS2 version somewhat and I like the Sphere Grid, that's the only reason I got it. The voice acting is terrible, minus Auron and I'm not really a fan of the FF series beyond 6. In fact, 1,3,4, and 6 are the only ones I really enjoyed, 4 being my all time favorite. I know I'll get flak in saying that probably by the die hard jRPG nerds. I just loved the sphere grid in this game so much and the music too. The sphere grid allows you to build your stats and once you get some unlock spheres, you can move into other character grids and learn their stats too, making everyone a superhero practically once you fill it out. Other than that, sorry, just not a fan of the plot or the character development, feels too rushed.
Posted 30 June.
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17.6 hrs on record
Before the patch, it was the usual RP grind....After the patch, I had a strange tingling sensation down south and I don't think it was my spider sense....
Posted 30 November, 2016.
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13.1 hrs on record
I'm not the biggest Flight Sim fan, but I am a die hard Star Wars fan and TIE Fighter is, hands down, the BEST Flight Sim ever made. I spent so many hours in High School playing this game over and over and never getting tired of it. This game, Jedi Knight, and the KOTOR series are the best Star Wars games to date, masterpieces in their own ways, that leave you begging and coming back for more.A few things before I review it, this does include the updated version of the game with the better textures and also the DOS classic. I prefer the remake because it immerses me a lot more than the polygon DOS version. Not to say DOS games are bad (love Dark Forces and Betrayal At Krondor) but with the updated textures, you can see you're really going after a Gold A-Wing or a freighter and the like. Also, USB controllers do work for this game. My Logitech Dual Action (Looks like a PS2 controller if you're unsure) is USB and works perfectly for this game.Everything about this game is perfect. You get a decent plot moved through by cutscenes between battles and missions, a pre-mission briefing and debriefing with a flight officer and a servant of the Empreror himself, and great in flight orders and notifications from the flight officer and other wingmen. The gameplay is fantastic, making you feel like you are a pilot for the Empire. You have many options for combat and defense in terms of matching speed with targets, ion cannons to disable ships, warheads for extra punch on small fighters to capital ships, scans to see what ships are carrying, even balancing weapon to shield to engine recharge rates. This flexibility gives a great element of strategy, do you need shields more or will you sacrifice them for speed and so on. Combat is extremely fun. A-Wing pilot dogfighting is my favorite since they are fast and programmed to dodge you well. Taking down capital ships and surviving, what can I say? A great thrill watching a frigate blow up from your heavy rockets.Ships range from the classic TIE, Bomber, Interceptor, Advanced, Defender (my personal fav), and two specialty ships, the assault gunboat for heavy combat with fighters to capital ships and a Missile Boat used to intercept warheads fired at capital ships. The combat simulator allows you to play with the different types to get a feel for them before trying them in the campaign.Music,I hear the MIDI system on DOS is a lot better than the updated. I will admit, the music loops, but it's classic Star Wars John Williams crystal clear tracks. It is repeatitive, but hey, put on your own tracks on iTunes or turn the music off. My fav part with the music, however, is when you accomplish an objective, the Imperial March plays, making you feel like a boss for taking out some Rebel Scum.As for downsides to the game...it's really hard for me to find any outside of two petty issues. One, it can get repeatitive. Fly and target this ship, defend this ship, take this capital ship out, etc. The story and flow and immersion make up for that. Game tasks can be repeatitive, but I know some people can get bored with that sort of thing. It's nothing to the point of boredom, however. You may feel you're doing the same thing, but the plot flow and mission flow easily make up for that. Second, I want more missions. I want to fly between episodes 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and beyond. I wanna see new ships on both sides. Either than that, this game has no real downsides imo.Even if you're not a Flight Sim fan, you will love this game, especially if you're a Star Wars fan. X-Wing was the start of magic, TIE Fighter took X-Wing and blew it out of the water taking X-Wing's excellent ideas and multiplying them by a thousand. This is a must own for new gamers, old gamers, and a great chance to reclaim a classic that is compatible on modern OS (I have 7, works fine. Heard issues for 10, hopefully will be fixed). Get this game, you won't be disappointed.10 out of 10
Posted 21 November, 2015.
Last edited 21 November, 2015.
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7.5 hrs on record
What do you get when you take a first person shooter, give it great guns, atmosphere, level design, a suspenseful plot, and spooky psychological scares? You get FEAR.FEAR (First Encounter Assault Recon) is a typical first person shooter at a glance. You move from point A to point B, gun down some baddies, flick a switch here, blow up that, turn a crank there, pick up ammo, etc. What makes it unique is the horror implemented into it. Between sessions of mowing down replica soldiers, you are treated to creepy dark places in buildings, officers, sewers, and even a research facility. Images of Alma and Fettel haunt you as well as what appear to be flashbacks along the way. Corridors fill with blood, specters appear out of no where, and voices or strange signals come in from unknown origins. Throwing you away from the run and gun style and then putting you into tense progression then throwing you back into the gunfights makes for an awesome receipe that likes to really play on your emotions.Aside from the awesome weapons, the game has really nice story flow. You chase after Paxton Fettel, but along the way, you get side-tracked and have to complete other objectives such as rescuing hostages, investigating areas, linking up with team members (hopefully) and getting the hell out of nasty situations. Along the way, you'll fight mind controlled soldiers, specters, drones, stealth soldiers, and even a few mechs and heavy suits. When you're in the horror parts of levels, you'll get incoming transmissions from unknow origins and may see or hear things that can make you jump if you haven't played through or forgot they were there. It tends to play more on the A aspect of horror as opposed to the B, but there is some B there.Combat and gameplay is simple for a shooter with two really awesome perks. You have boosted reflexes (which, in addition to your health, you can increase the meter of finding boosters) that slows the world around you allowing you to gun down soliders easier. You also have a jump kick and slide attack, very uncommon for many FPS which usually use melee as hitting someone with your gun in common practice. Second, the AI learns your play style presenting a really fantastic challenge. I tested it by starting off as a run and gun, get in there, shoot me all you want I'm coming for you style to where I saw the AI hiding or retreating to different cover often. Other times, I played it safe, hid behind crates and walls, leaned, shot, duck and cover. Eventually, the enemies were flanking me, doing pincer attacks, and coming at me hard to fish me out. Every time I changed tactics, the AI did the same for next time. It gets me wondering that if the intentional breaks in the action to move to the more horror parts of the levels was for that purpose, to recalibrate the AI. Regardless, the transition from spooky to run and gun and vice versa is sheer genius.There are two major issues I have with this game, however. One is that it's short. I can get through this game in 6 hours, less if I put more time into it. This game came out around a time where these games were becoming faster, easier, and designed shorter sadly which many FPS post Half-Life 2 tend to be now. I can understand that Multiplayer in an FPS is more popular now then Singleplayer, but outside of a game's story, I love to play Single first to get a feel for the game's mechanics and style and practice with the weapons first before I go in and totally embarass myself until I get used to it. The second issue with this game is not really a huge one, but it's still there. I really wish that the AI would support you and join you, even if for brief moments. You do sometimes link up with squadmates or joint op teams (Delta mainly), but either something happens to them, you get derailed from your path, or you watch them do scripted routines and they tell you to go do something or find someone. At least it's not like in Doom 3 where you're praying you link up with Bravo, but the reality is you know you never will and you're alone. The linear path I could complain about, but this isn't the type of game meant for exploration and the atmosphere at least immerses you into the game so that can easily be overlooked.Overall it's a great game that has the same formula you'd expect an FPS to have with its own nice little contributions. It's no Half-Life, but it's unique, exciting, and scary enough to keep me returning when I'm in the mood.9 out of 10
Posted 15 June, 2015.
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8.3 hrs on record
You know that dark days are ahead when Stephen Russell, the original voice actor for Garrett, is not voicing him in this game, but that is only one of the many problems the reboot to my favorite game series of all time has.I have been a die hard Thief fan for 15 years now. Looking Glass created the most amazing game that never really took off, but had developed a huge cult following. The first two were masterpieces. Sneak, infiltrate in numerous ways, hide, blackjack, steal loot, hide bodies, fight the undead, watch your step, you name it. Reading what goes on during the day in each place that had things to read made it feel like you were immersed in the world. No other game has EVER left me hungry and literally shaking in excitement for more.Thief 3 was a bit of a step down, but it wrapped things up in quite a decent and surprising way. Warren Spector supervised it and many from the Looking Glass staff came to create it. Alas, it wasn't the same as the first two, but it had a charm to it...minus the load zones of course.Then comes in the Thief reboot....where to begin...although graphically decent and polished in the skills of surprise, combat, ingenuity in gadgets, a progression system to help improve yourself as a thief, and a decent city to explore, it cannot make up for the severe woes that plague this game. The plot is fairly decent, as is the voice acting (outside of the lack of Stephen Russell) and the atmosphere is there, dark, foggy, gritty at points, you get the idea. The lockpicking is pretty cool and they added finding switches and levers in bookcases and behind paintings. So, the game actually makes you feel more like a professional. Back to my previous comment about the woes, with all the positives I have said so far, you'd think it was the Thief game we fans were waiting for. The woes, which can be summed up in one word: Scripted.The whole game feels like a forced script. Where the originals had many ways to tackle entering, solving, exploring an area, and completing a mission, this game feels like it runs on a linear rail. You'd be lucky sometimes to find more than one path to finish a mission where the others let you go at it and figure it out on your own. I felt like I was being forced to go on one path alone and then get done with it. Sure, it branches off to different rooms sometimes, but not many. Loot is so easy to snag and the AI is easy to fool. The game seems to just want you to get into conflicts to save yourself from the bordeom. In the originals, knowing whether or not a guard is going to catch you was thrilling, in this, getting caught is so easily unavoidable that it's childs play. Even turning off the assistance the game gives you like the notice eyes for the guards and civilians still can't make up for the lack of challenge this game presents. The explorative factors are gone and replaced with one path, a scripted sequence which could be a cutscene to a daring escape Assassins Creed style, and then stupid simple puzzles or platform jumps that are so predictable. This game could have been a masterpiece, but I get the feeling Eidos M catered to the classic &simplicity& I see with many games nowadays, much like how Diablo 3 was severely watered down (and still is, but recent patches and the expansion at least have made it enjoyable) with the removal of the skill tree replaced with simply combining different spells, that sort of thing. Overall, Thief is a slightly above fair game. It's creativity, atmosphere, and progression system is heavily overshadowed by a one path, one solution, do it or don't play sort of feeling that haunts you chapter to chapter. Had this game had the same level design of the first ones, this could have been a highly anticipated reboot that I could have said was better than Thief 3. Thief 3 is still better than this game and it's shocking to say that considering you can do so much more in the reboot, but Thief 3 had more to explore and more ways to tackle things despite being as claustraphobic as it was at points. Newcomers, give it a shot I suppose, but play Thief 1 or 2 for true experiences. Thief fans like me, get ready for a big disappointment.6 out of 10
Posted 15 June, 2015.
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