Ross's Game Dungeon (from Freeman's Mind guy)

[MicoSelva]

Ross Scott aka "Freeman's Mind guy' is doing these game reviews of various, sometimes retro, sometimes not, but usually little known games. I do not always agree with him, but I like his sense of humour, common sense approach (he is very pro-DRM-free, for example - I wish GOG sponsored him instead of Totalbiscuit) and appreciation of less popular games. He has become my go-to entertainer/reviewer after the fall of The Spoony One.

He gets bonus points for living in Poland.

Trigger warning: he hates turn-based combat in games.

Some review examples:

Revenant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxESGanJxhM



part 2 -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=encE-bp5_QM

Strife

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPrU7LSqiX0



Wolfenstein (2009)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4LaR1C6Xds



The Secret World (the MMO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YciQn3gFwvM

 

[Baron Dupek]

I think he was mentioned here once or twice. Reminded me about Revenant so I finally get my shit together and finished it.
Agree with wresting with ogre part, bullshit. And caves, with constant respawn behind your back, yuck. Do I mentioned that I hate respawning enemies?

living in Poland.

But why?

Edit: oh boy, he uploaded video about Dungeon Siege when I was writing this post.
Let's see how it (doesn't) hold up today.

 

[MicoSelva]

living in Poland.

But why?

He moved to live with his Polish girlfriend - they met online and she was (or rather: is) a fan of his work.

Also: Revenant was cool, except the final levels, which were clearly unfinished and pure bullshit.

EDIT: Dungeon Siege video below (spoiler: he likes the original game).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgsR3qZp3-M

 

[Karwelas]

I don't know why nobody talk about Ross awesome work. Really, bump this thread up. His game dungeons are usually really great.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Men.
I'm really salty about bad choice. When I played Dung Sieges 1+2+addons (because I got nothing else to play on shit computer) I bailed archers for combat mages. That was a massive mistake because offensive magic suxxx major balls and ranged weapons are good (massive crossbows a'la ballistas, miniguns, flamethrowers).
Not to mention that archers have better chance to survive close encounters with enemies (AI is so hohoho smart he rush directly to the ranged/mages when combat start). In DungSiege2 (surely in Broken World addon) they even have special melee weapons for ranged characters. How cool is that.
Still not as annoying as Icewind Dale 2, where your melee characters are not touched by hostile forces in first minute of the combat (before squishy teammates die), but damn it was annoying.
The only gameplay part in the whole cinematic experience.

EDIT
Thanks for reminder about Puzzle Agent. For some reason I started with sequel and did not touched PA1. I don't remember why, honestly.
And there is new 10th session of X-Files so it's no brainer to start.

 

[pippin]

Ross' alright. He does not give himself airs of grandeur or shit like that, it's just a bro, even if you don't agree with him sometimes. I like how he's down to earth about games in general.

 

[Siveon]

I agree. It's not really a critique it's just him giving his straight up opinion and making a fun video with it.

Sort of like the antithesis to Matthew Matosis. But they're both cool.

 

[Martius]

Men.
In DungSiege2 (surely in Broken World addon) they even have special melee weapons for ranged characters. How cool is that.

Really? I dont remember anything like that. Can you tell bit more about that?

 

[Berekän]

Yeah Ross's Game Dungeon is definitely one of those videos I look forward to all the time. Very entertaining and even if you might not agree with him all the time, he makes very good points.

 

[Baron Dupek]

New video about TOP5 RPGCodex favourite - Desu Ex~
Fistful of politics and similiar, not as much as this guy though:
Deus Ex: The Lecture Series - YouTube

 

[deama]

My mind is blown up...

 

[Baron Dupek]

Seems like that wasn't an April joke, that Freeman's Mind S02, this time in Half Life 2.

 

[Mark Richard]

Big fan of Ross's Game Dungeon. Lengthy scripted gaming videos that take weeks to research & film are the only type of video that should be allowed on Youtube.

 

[Alienman]

The Rendezvous with Rama is my fav video by him. It's also one of my favorite books, so it was interesting to see the stuff from the book visualized. Would never have the mental strength to play that game myself.

 

[MicoSelva]

Ross recently reviewed Hinterland in his Game Dungeon:

 

[Great Deceiver]

I remember that Hinterland was the game that made me give up on the idea of Tilted Mill altogether.

 

[thesoup]

I never thought freeman's mind was in any way funny, but the game dungeon videos are pretty nice. The deus ex video popped into my recommended feed somehow and it was pretty monocled.

 

[MicoSelva]

Yeah, Ross also prefers making Game Dungeon to Freeman's Mind, but FM gives him much better YT money, so he caved and started making FM2 after years of requests.

 

[HansDampf]

If money wasn't an issue he'd just be working on his movie and nothing else.

 

[Ash]

Never heard of him aside from the Deus Ex video and I stopped viewing the moment he said NuDX's gameplay is on par if not better than the originals and didn't provide any gameplay analyses whatsoever to even attempt to back it up. You don't get a second chance from a gameplay fag after spewing popamole-inclined garbage like that.

 

[555]

For people that don't follow his videochats: He mentioned that he's getting married in the latest one. So the rate of uploads/progress on the movie will probably slow down

 

[Baron Dupek]

Even more? Dangit. Looks like carving for slav puss went too far...
Still not recovered after that bizzare game with grandma, that was helluva ride. Puzzles even more obscure that Sierra games my ass.
Hinterland is one of these hidden and forgotten gem on GamesGate store, one of the few playable at least.

 

[Ash]

OK so I got bored slash curious and checked out his Wolfenstien vid. Get this: he gave up playing half way through as a result of a lack of emotional investment in the plot/characters/events. Never mind all that shit is minimal and merely an excuse to kill all nazis, explore, loot shit and upgrade your weapons, even if it is poorly done. There is elements of storytelling and they should be good if they're going to exist, but if you give up on a murder simulator when the little sprinkles of reason to go kill Nazis or add a tiny bit of backstory turn out to not be very good you're very much missing the point.
In his credit, his criticism of most things non-gameplay related were accurate and respectable, but anything gameplay related and he appears to be a dunce, e.g he found the Isenstadt hub level overwhelming for being too maze-like, which is laughable. I don't quite think he gets you should be playing such games, shooters especially, for the gameplay.
Anyhow, there is merit to the guy. Like I said, anything he said NOT related to gameplay was , and anything gameplay related was just shit, if he says anything at all (he doesn't go into gameplay nearly as much as he does anything else).

So there is my preview of this guy. Not bad, good even in some respects, just don't know why he is playing and analysing games, especially ones like Wolf, when he's clearly not really much a gameplay enthusiast.

 

[JarlFrank]

I like Ross's Game Dungeon. I don't always agree with his opinion on games, but he never claims to be an authority, he just says what his tastes are and describes his experience with the game, and he's entertaining about it. Also, he puts in some research and effort into his videos, playing even shitty shovelwares to the end if he can. One of my favourite vids of his is the one where he plays some obscure old breakout clone, and hunts down the developer of the thing, then receives parts 1 and 3 of the game which up to that point hadn't existed anywhere on the internet and were lost to time. Then he uploads them for everyone to play. They're shit games, but it doesn't matter - this is a huge fucking contribution to game archaeology and deserves the highest respect

 

[Ash]

He's good, just not when it comes to gameplay, which is pretty fucking important. But that aside, yes, he's and clearly does a fair amount of research. I'll look to youtube alternatives, but this guy would definitely be my go-to if he were as on the ball with gameplay as he were everything else.