Recent reviews by Jinx

Amazing game, the fact that you are unable to fight huge predators with a hammer or butter knife increases the immersion and realism. Sorry for the people who are too big of cowards to deal with a monster without using a gatling gun, maybe grow some balls?

So on the surface this looks like a gag game, but it's actually really good on its own merits. It's like a top down shooter that plays like an FPS, and if you like different kinds of ammo and guns etc. you're going to have fun. If it sounds remotely interesting or you're curious I'd just try it. It's hard to describe this game lol

My friend from work asked me what the duck game was that I was always playing.

"Escape from Duckov?"

"No, the one where the game is adjusting graphics settings to optimize the duck."

"....what?"

Just finished this (I'm not that good so I went through on Easy) and I have sort of mixed feelings. On a technical level it's fantastic, runs flawlessly, and shows you what the Genesis is capable of when it has a big cartridge. But it feels a little weak and vanilla in other ways.

For one, the actual art design doesn't have much character. While very detailed, the levels kind of blur together to me, as do the bosses. It's hard not to compare this to the Thunder Force and Gradius series, which tend to have very memorable levels and bosses. I will always remember being dazzled by the fire level in Thunder Force III, and the brain boss in Life Force is iconic. Nothing in this game really stood out to me that way.

Also - and I can't believe I'm saying this - the soundtrack is disappointing. At least I think it is. The way the audio is mixed I feel like the music doesn't punch through the sound effects properly. Like if I'm playing Thunder Force III the soundtracks is just pulsing at the forefront, it energizes you and sucks you into that world. Here the soundtrack feels like it's in the background and sort of lost under all the other noise.

I'm still going to recommend it... it's a very good game, and everyone has different tastes. It just didn't quite live up to expectations and certainly doesn't unseat Thunder Force III or Lightening Force (TF4) as my top Genesis shmup. As I suggested before I'm a huge Thunder Force and Gradius fan. And I despise R-Type lol. So maybe that will help you gauge my tastes vs your own.

First the game seems to run like hot garbage, the menus are laggy and it feels like 30fps but the frame counter won't work. I'm on a freaking 5070ti.

It also seems to run at a low resolution... and there are basically NO graphics settings of any kind, not even for something as basic as resolution.

Then the first hole was so annoying I uninstalled the game.

I mean I guess buy to try but be sure to try within 2 weeks in case your experience is as bad as mine.

I'm really loving this game. There's always something to do or somewhere to explore or new Pals to find. I was not expecting the open world to be this HUGE, or for there to be so much content, especially for an Early Access game. And it's pretty polished, I've had no crashes and only a minor bug here or there.

Also, unlike other Unreal Engine 5 games it actually runs quite well with good framerates and no stutter, even when you are moving quite quickly. (5070ti but I'm getting over 120fps with DLSS at 4K on higher settings).

Updated/New Review, 36 hours in:

Love it love it love it. Favorite Borderlands since 2 for sure, waaaayyyy better than 3. Great guns and gunplay, great mobility, and the open world is such a game changer that I think I would have a hard time going back to the old games. There's just always something to explore or find or do. It also looks gorgeous, love the improved lighting, foliage, and draw distance. I haven't had a single crash and only a couple minor bugs. So, sluggish but stable. My biggest complaint is that the UI is kinda ♥♥♥♥ and makes wading through piles of guns annoying.

The game is HEAVY. It's doing a lot, though, the switch to an open world combined with increased fidelity is a tall ask. This game was always going to be harder to run than 3. But it shouldn't be *this* heavy. Hopefully they'll be able to optimize it a bit more soon :/

I think the larger issue with performance is that the game needs to "scale down" better for older or slower hardware. Everyone deserves to enjoy this game, but with anything under say a 5070 it maybe be a rough. (not sure I'd even try on an 8GB GPU) If you get it and are struggling, here are a few tips:

1) Don't be afraid to us DLSS on Performance. It is extremely effective with this art style, especially with the new Transformer model. I use it on Performance at 4K and it looks great.

2) I'd pass on frame generation (sorry, Randy). It comes with a steep performance cost to your base framerate. Like you might be getting 70fps then you turn it on and you are getting 110 fps - not 140 - because your base fps tanked to like 55. So it's not just giving you fake frames, it's sucking away a bunch of "real" frames as well.

3) Go to your graphics card settings and increase the Shader Cache Size to 100GB. This will give enough space to cache all the shaders and you'll find your game gets smoother over time.

4) Check out the Hardware Unboxed optimized settings guide. A lot of the higher settings on this game do almost nothing but tank performance for almost no gain in graphical fidelity.

I adored this game initially but now I'm struggling to stick with it.

The initial area is basically a dungeon escape. It has great level design and it's just really fun and enjoyable with lots of stuff to find and overheard and read lore about the place. 9/10, absolutely sold me on the game.

But then you get to the open world and the rest of the game and it's... okay? A couple big turn-offs:

NPCs. I don't expect the NPCs in an RPG to talk in thees and thous, but the language is SO 2025 in terms of phrasing and expressions that it's extremely off-putting. It really hurts any sense of immersion, it feels like all the NPCs know they're in a game.

Almost every NPC you can talk to has a dialogue option that's basically "is there anything I can help you with?" and it feels awkward.

Combat. I actually like the core combat and it can be engaging... one on one. As soon as you have more than one enemy it breaks. It's all based on blocking and dodging and counter-attacking. That all takes stamina, and you do not have enough stamina to be blocking multiple enemies at once. You also have no time to block everything or counter-attack because you're constantly being beat on if you have 2+ enemies. It immediately turns into either being pummeled into the ground or running away and kiting them which isn't very fun or effective.

Not sure I'm going to stick with this or not. Just be aware that the first couple hours are kind of different from the rest of the game. Just because you like the beginning doesn't mean you'll like it once you hit the open world.

*edit* Okay apparently it looks like the game also has AI art in but didn't disclose it so hopefully they'll let us refund it. Too bad.

One of my favorite games of all time but until Take 2 walks back the new EULA and malware they can **** off and they can forget about me buying Borderlands 4.

One of my favorite games of all time but until Take 2 walks back the new EULA and malware they can **** off and they can forget about me buying Borderlands 4.