Review: Chivalry Medieval Warfare (3/5)

This is a fairly cheap game that is pretty bare bones. It's a multiplayer medieval combat hack and slash game. There is no single player except a short tutorial.

Things I liked:
-Simple and easy to understand combat system that had more depth than just button mashing that makes gameplay addicting and fun.
-Variety of game modes and classes with different abilities and weapons keeps gameplay interesting.
-Hilarious the way the bodies get dismembered and how you can make your character shout before going into battle. Game just ends up feeling sort of wacky.

Things I didn't like:
-Dated graphics can be slightly distracting.
-Combat can get repetitive fairly quickly.
-I believe there are rewards like new weapons from leveling up and playing more but that was never made clear.

Chivalry is a fun, simple, and relatively cheap game that I think is totally worth picking up, especially if you can get it on sale.

Hours played: 2
Final score: 3/5

Review: Dishonored (2/5)

When I first saw the trailers for Dishonored it looked like a cool environment, but I thought it still looked like just another action game. When the reviews came out though it seemed very well rated so I thought I'd reconsider. In Dishonored you play Lord Corvo, the protector of the Empress, who is framed for killing her and must take his revenge. The world is loosely industrial revolution themed with different science based on whale oil. Magic also plays a role but it's not known about by the common man. The game is a first person hybrid between stealth and combat with some minor RPG elements in picking your powers.

Things I liked:
-Interesting and unique environment and theme.
-Missions had a good variety of ways to play through them and felt very open.
-I enjoyed the unique spells such as possession and rat swarm, and I especially liked the blink spell. I love teleporting in games.

Things I didn't like:
-Combat grew stale quickly. Lack of variety in enemies early on bored me.
-Often felt like I had too many options. Between all the weapons and powers it was too hard to decide the best way to dispatch enemies.
-Stealth mechanics were interesting, but it seemed like I wasn't punished enough for getting caught. I played on hard difficulty and I could often just stand up and kill everyone or blink away onto a roof until they forgot about me.
-The game made too many compromises between stealth and combat, resulting in neither gameplay option being as good as they could have been.
-The plot was unique enough, but too predictable and not very exciting.

I'm going against the grain here by disagreeing with most reviewers but I thought Dishonored was nothing special and felt like just another action game. The plot, environment, and themes had a lot of potential but were lacking in execution. I wouldn't recommend it.

Hours played: 8
Final score: 2/5