Aidan Bates


26 games reviewed
73.8 average score
80 median score
61.5% of games recommended
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Feb 14, 2018

Overall, Kingdom Come: Deliverance gets a 9/10, the gameplay is amazing, replacing my need to play Skyrim for quite some time to come. Swordplay is smooth and unforgiving to those who rush in, setting your character up is immersive and engaging, skill progression is rewarding and clearly displayed with diplomacy being rather in-depth.

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Overall South Park: The Fractured but Whole gets a 9/10, the humour is great for those who meld well with its style or if you’re a fan of the series. The gameplay has improved greatly from the first game with more strategic thinking being required for later parts of the game. The dungeon maps are longer with more puzzles, if a bit fewer in numbers in comparison to the first game.

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Nov 4, 2018

Overall Red Dead Redemption 2 gets a 9/10, it is a blast to play with great attention to detail. Picking up your hat after a bar brawl, changing your equipment or shaving your beard all feel natural with some amazing flow between actions. Some missions are kind of boring, with some events forcing you down a certain path or telling you to take dishonourable acts when you could be wanting a more honourable playthrough.

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Mar 25, 2018

Overall, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom gets a 9/10, improving on the prequel, adding in new mechanics and everything makes this on par, if not better, than the first game. Overused voice cues can feel grating at times, alongside some mechanics taking too long are some aspects that do bring the game down a bit.

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May 23, 2018

Overall, Dark Souls Remastered gets a 9/10, it revives the 7-year-old game from its undead status back into the limelight, even if it didn’t go far from it. The quality of life additions are welcome with no change feeling out of place or unwanted. FPS improvements make the whole experience more enjoyable, with less to blame your death on.

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8 / 10 - Antihero
Jul 10, 2017

Overall Antihero has amazing and engaging gameplay that requires you to think rather than brute force it. The style is refreshing alongside the continual addition of mechanics keeping every level feeling fresh.

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Sep 5, 2017

Overall, Ark: Survival Evolved gets an 8/10, it was and still is a great game, with the new additions to the game and changes it has seen a vast improvement. However, it still has a big problem, glitches, and optimisation, with many claiming it has not improved since day one. Early Access, Alphas, and Betas are meant to be the time you make a game stable, not add more stuff to break it.

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8 / 10 - Slime Rancher
Oct 20, 2018

Overall, Slime Rancher gets an 8/10, it has improved on its design from the early access version and being ported to PS4 allows many more people to play this lovely little simulation game. It can feel quite grindy at times, with most of the story told through text rather than events or voices. The lack of NPCs or people to interact with besides mail can feel a bit lonely, though being surrounded by slimes adds to the immersion of being on the ranch.

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Jan 31, 2018

Overall, Dragon Ball FighterZ gets an 8/10, the main gameplay is superb, reaching near the top of my favourite list of fighting games. A good majority of the game feels balanced, with the aesthetic looking gorgeous, even with some minor annoyances with light and shadows being used in the cutscenes

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Feb 13, 2018

Overall, Dynasty Warriors 9 gets an 8/10, the main gameplay is fun with plenty of new additions to the mechanics alongside the ever-increasing units the games are able to display at once. The voice acting is way below the bar, the story is rehashed like normal, the separate stories feel too similar to one another with some being shortened and the map feels underutilised most of the time. You will also find yourself repeating the same task over and over with their quest system telling you to kill nearby troops that spawn out of thin air or to bring a hide to a villager.

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Overall Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire gets an 8/10, it prides itself on thousands of lines of descriptions that add into the theatre of the mind effect it has going on. The combat is tight, difficult at times but allows for in-depth customisation with AI control.

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Overall Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age gets an 8/10, it is beautiful, exciting and brings back that good VIII feel of yesteryear. Fans of the series will love the updated combat system that keeps to the core of the series design, improved graphics and larger maps. The music is reminiscent of the past but sound design clings onto that nostalgia a bit too harshly with retro choices in a modern release. The difficulty is pretty solid if you decide to fight enemies but can ramp up if you move around the very easy-to-dodge foes. If you are a fan of the series, DQ11 is pretty much just more Dragon Quest, without any drastic changes to the formula.

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Aug 26, 2018

Overall, Rigid Force Alpha gets an 8/10, it is a beautiful, engaging experience and one that brings me back to my youth. The nostalgia won’t be as strong for a younger audience, alongside the difficulty possibly putting off a portion of gamers.

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Oct 9, 2018

If you are a fan of Pathfinder, then Kingmaker may scratch your itch while you look for a PnP group to join. Though, due to the number of characters you need to control, reading text, character optimisation and player-input it may feel off-putting to players who don’t normally play D&D or PF.

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7 / 10 - Far Cry 5
Apr 18, 2018

Overall Far Cry 5 gets a 7/10, it feels like it has taken away many points that made the series so fun and immersive in the past. Gunplay is still fun, with plenty of options for your arms, but with the new skill system, it does force you outside of your preferred gameplay style more than once.

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It has some cute quirks, both in style and gameplay but suffers too much from that cute approach to design. The season mechanic keeps some of the game fresh but locks some stuff away. Crafting is quick and simple, combined with an easy to learn trading system in place for items you’re wanting to obtain.

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7 / 10 - Fictorum
Sep 7, 2017

Overall Fictorum gets a 7/10, it doesn't feel like a full release, more of an early access build of the game. The music feels underdeveloped, alongside the battle maps that are repeated too many times with boring mountains above the clouds. Spell customising can be quite fun, with on the fly control of how you use your mana and runes.

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Fans of difficult RPGs will enjoy Legrand, but with so many tactics required for normal battles, rigging encounters in your favour or stockpiling items, any player might feel like the game was against them. Against other “difficult” games like Dark Souls that allowed skill to prevail over stats, Legrand feels too narrowed into numbers or the single path allowed for victory.

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Oct 15, 2018

Overall, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey gets a 7/10, it is an enjoyable experience that lets you explore, grind and complete objectives for hours on end. Disappointingly it has strayed so far from the core aspect of AC, which was being an assassin with the implementation of levelled kills, forcing you to engage with combat over and over again. Vistas are beautiful, with a surprisingly good female lead, while the male lead falls far behind.

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Overall, The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep gets a 7/10, it is an enjoyable adventure with engaging turn-based combat and puzzle solving but fails too harshly in other areas. Combat can become repetitive at certain points where you fight the same setup of enemies 5 times in a row when it doesn’t glitch out. Some puzzles are overly easy, while others are overtly vague without reason. The difficulty is great throughout, aside from some areas that take a drastic leap. The long list of glitches and bugs ruin an otherwise amazing experience as they plague every corner.

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