Recent reviews by Hellbishop

Horrible optimization and lag fest. This is on a i9 12900k,32gb ram, RTX 3080 with 12gb vram, 2TB SSD, Windows 11, latest updates installed, 2560x1440p resolution. All my other games CYBERPUNK 2077, DYING LIGHT 2, STARFIELD, BALDUR'S GATE III, COMPANY OF HEROES 3 etc etc run great on ultra settings at 1440p.

A haunting heroic trip back in time to a place where adventurers bravely ventured forth into the darkness of depraved all dominating evil lurking in dungeons diabolical.

THE DARKNESS BELOW is all you could ask for dungeon crawlers of old fused into the present with modern trappings and gorgeous graphics which don't murder the eyes with pixel melted colors with the excuse of.. IT'S RETRO.

You have beautiful towns with stores and inns to spend hard fought for coin on weapons/attire if you have the skills to use them, potions healing/magical, and to rest weary bones while enjoying a delicious feast to comfort and strengthen. Many a home and street will greet you with those wishing to join your party to enrich your party with their potent skills.. for a price.

Dungeons are horrifying dens of monstrous terrors lurking, slithering, STOMPING!!! about in search of tasty flesh to rip apart and devour RAW!!! because that's just the way they like it.

THE DARKNESS BELOW, buy it! play it! as it calls to you like an old friend to return.. return to a world where monsters dwell in the tempting midst of untold treasures waiting for your party to grind you alive with teeth and mandibles into a juicy bloody happy meal or to fall by your majestic blade and magics most glorious!

Keys are unable to be rebind to the arrows keys making it impossible to properly control my character during combat as i never use WASD. Tried the other control schemes such as s z x c which said they were rebind but when i went back into the game it was back to the WASD keybind scheme.

Also key input does not always respond during combat or when doing things like going into the inventory or checking out a new portrait where i have to click on the tab key the exact moment i get the new portrait otherwise the game does not respond to the tab key.

Gorgeous graphics with or without ray tracing on and great writing along with magical reality transcending music/audio work but game controls are horrible. Would have been nice to just run past boss areas to explore the world and come back to beat them when at a higher level but like all souls like games your blocked by an invisible wall making it impossible to go any further unless defeating the boss which as i mentioned with this horrible control scheme which does not always respond to keyboard input is nothing but frustrating and impossible.

Just a heads up that the game no longer runs on my new i9 12900 k, 32gb ram, RTX 3080 12gb vram, 2TB SSD, Windows 11 latest update as of July 10 2024. From what i played when the game first came out in 2019 on my i7 8700, RTX 2060, Windows 10 it was a creepy and fun ride with great visuals and audio work.

A buggy mess with a deceptive two hour timed trail period by CAPCOM which counts towards the STEAM refund period once you actually buy the game so i only had twenty minutes to refund the game.

Broken quests where every time i go do something like a fetch quest i never have all the ingredients even though the game tells me i do and to go give them to the person at the new quest marker on the map.

User interface is a non-intuitive nightmare to figure out where i could not even get to my inventory without a ton of hassle and time wasted. Still don't know if there is any way to trade items with pawns even though one of them was mentioning if i have too much to carry they will gladly take an apple off my load if i have one.

Female Pawns end up with male voices once again probably due to the horrible user interface. Enemy variety thus far is horribly limited with only griffins and goblins along the trail which do not appear for long stretches of time so am pretty much just walking around a linear path down a road gathering ingredients and listening to pawn chatter instead of finding interesting locations and enemies to battle. When there is combat my Pawns bum rush the enemy like a horde of ravenous piranhas before i can even get a blow in. My character has leveled up to level 4 yet once again due to the horrible ui i have no idea if i even have a character level up screen to use skill points in.

My character is also weighed down but i have yet to find a way to throw my extra gear on the ground to lighten the load once again because of the annoying non-intuitive user interface so my muscled up warrior character is out of breath after running ten seconds due to all that he is carrying.

Performance wise i have had no issues on my i9 12900 k with 32gb ram, 2TB SSD, RTX 3080 with 12gb vram, Windows 11, latest updates and drivers. All my problems have been with game play bugs and design and the deceptive "FREE" two hour trail period which counts towards one's refund period when buying the game afterwards. I have no beef with STEAM they are always generous with their refund policy and have saved me plenty of money in the past. With all due respect to the game creative process and developers doing their best to make a living Its CAPCOM i feel is pulling a fast one here.

UPDATE: STEAM as always comes to rescue looking out for their customers/fans and gave me a refund after i followed up on some of the constructive advice given in the comments section by my fellow gaming brothers and sisters.

Thanks again to Snakester in the comments section and to Janna at STEAM Support for looking into the matter and letting me know i still qualified for a refund. Cheers and have a great summer all! :)

A mind shattering experience of TABLETOP GAMING! Flowing with the blood of knightly heroes and magical spell weaving wizards! Animated by magnificent graphical beauty both elegant and blood soaked fearsome! Battlefields enchanted by the majestic music of the classical ages both inspiring and menacing flowing as a mysterious fog across haunted forest and villager town.

SHIELDS OF LOYALTY, Buy it! Play it! Can YOU oh most noble and mighty from a time past rise once more in turn based excellence to save MANTARIA! and all its loyal citizenry from the fiendish ghastly demonic hordes? Can you? CAN YOU!!!?

A visual masterpiece of gaming art. A goddess like creation of unparalleled beauty. Lore and dialogue which soothes the soul with a soft and tender tongue. Music and audio which caresses the senses like windswept opium. Character creation which makes an artist out of the gamer giving them the power to create a character of perfection incarnate with tones straight out of a 1970's fantasy magazine ala HEAVY METAL, VAMPIRELLA, CREEPY/EERIE etc.

Unfortunately Souls style games are not for me. Too frustrating for someone like me who is more into The Elder Scrolls and Larian rpgs. So i will leave this positive review because if the combat had been more SKYRIM or even third person turn based this would have been one of my TOP THREE GAMES OF ALL TIME! and a game to be played for ALL TIME!!!

MEN OF WAR II i am definitely enjoying it and love the depth of detail such as every individual soldier having their own inventory and being able to dig trenches of different heights. Digging my first trench i accidentally made it so deep my soldiers could not get out of it ha ha. Being able to zoom in to a sweet up close ground level as well as first person views with increased detail seen is a exquisite sight to behold.

The blood and gore is off the charts and very welcomed. I could not believe when i saw the blood flowing and the body parts flying everywhere sending a visceral adrenaline filled shock to my senses as i suddenly was taken to another level of battlefield realism. Also seeing soldiers dying and or slumping over after being caught in a explosion is very nice. The fast pace at which everything occurs is exhilarating capturing that hectic feel of battle.

The amount of content is also incredible with Battalion Mode, PVP, PVE, the main campaign etc. The reinforcement timer is very well done adding to the tension and tactical thinking where troops have to last and not just thrown into a killing field to be slaughter. The long range combat element is a delight to behold giving that sense of death coming out of nowhere as well as concealment where the more you shoot the more likely you are to be revealed and open to enemy fire unless you periodically stop firing. Things like camouflage can help in staying hidden and in cover for a longer period allowing for an increased fire rate.

As for as comparison to the previous game it is different for sure and much more hectic in a good way without feeling overwhelming while the previous games were a bit more slow paced and stealthy. Many people are calling MEN OF WAR II a hardcore version of COMPANY OF HEROES on steroids. There is also a classical mode i have not yet played which is supposed to be more like the previous games. The Devs are also planning to add a Offline Mode in a upcoming patch which am looking forward to since i only play single player.

Pretty amazing to see two fantastic wargames come in the past two months with HEADQUARTERS WORLD WAR II (turn based) and MEN OF WAR II (real time). Happy days, happy days.

MEN OF WAR II graphics are stunning and a visual joy to behold with sharp detailed models flowing with unit authenticity bringing the heroism and violent battlefield action of a 2024 war game in this incredible renaissance of our gaming hobby.

Music and dialogue hits all the precision pin point tones of audio poetry inspiring wargamers to battle on as artillery screams thundering down with earth shattering death and bodies shredded in a furious fusillade of burning lead give out their last agonizing gasp.

MEN OF WAR II, Buy it! Play it! Embrace a video game battlefield come to THRILLING BOMBASTIC EXPLOSIVE LIFE!!! like no MEN OF WAR game has ever before!!!

An incredible work of gaming artistry and storytelling alive with shocking impact filled emotional imagery of the most expressive kind. Writing is of the highest caliber drawing the player into a dark sinister world Fantastico Studio has created for us where we find ourselves caring for the tormented twisted characters come to life before our ever cautious senses.

The masterfully crafted and conjured into being soundtrack is pure throbbing tension dancing in dark primal harmony with the splendidly orchestrated sound effects in an audio intercourse of nightmare immersion where cruelty is as a secret bond.

Thank you to Fantastico Studio for gracing us with this incredible work and may we be blessed with more such magnificent grim journeys for many decades to come.

CANNIBAL TALES - EPISODE 1, Buy it! Play it! Be engulfed in a flesh tidal wave that is of the blackest textures of human existence.

Badly designed and unoptimized game. Frequent crashing and the QTE is the worst i have seen in any game where you have to look for click on keys miles away from each other in split second timing where your pretty much dead in an instant. The witch whose appearance is the only good thing about the game can detect you from unbelievable distances and around walls and corners no matter how quiet you explore areas. Crashes are frequent which made all the other things more frustrating as i would get past a tough area or a puzzle only to end up with the game crashing on me and having to attempt it all over again.

BLACKBERRY, not worth the time or effort with all the technical issues and frustration it sends the players way even at the current sales price after buying it again a year later to see if any updates had changed anything.