ChrisSeitz
77 Reviews liked by ChrisSeitz
Counter-Strike 2
2023
The first ever shot I took in my first ever game of any Counter Strike, which I fired completely haphazardly out of my hip, turned out to be a piercing double kill with a single AWP sniper bullet to end the round as the second to last guy standing.
One eastern-European sounding guy in the voice chat went nuts and the next round the entire squad followed me.
I should have just quit playing right then and there, while I was still riding that high, because they soon realised what a fucking noob I actually am and I remembered why I normaly, preemptively choose to mute my squad-fill in most online games I suck at.
Also, as an Austrian guy who loves to paint, I hate that there is an instantly recognisable, shitheaded implication in the gamer tag "Austrian Painter" which was next to the muscle flexing profil picture of a sly nazi, at least -sympathizer, idiot, who hard-carried me the entire next game.
Or maybe he meant Schiele or Kokoschka we'll never know. He might enjoy going to the museum after working out or headshotting some shitters like me.
Nah, we all know who he meant.
I just hate that we all know who he meant.
One eastern-European sounding guy in the voice chat went nuts and the next round the entire squad followed me.
I should have just quit playing right then and there, while I was still riding that high, because they soon realised what a fucking noob I actually am and I remembered why I normaly, preemptively choose to mute my squad-fill in most online games I suck at.
Also, as an Austrian guy who loves to paint, I hate that there is an instantly recognisable, shitheaded implication in the gamer tag "Austrian Painter" which was next to the muscle flexing profil picture of a sly nazi, at least -sympathizer, idiot, who hard-carried me the entire next game.
Or maybe he meant Schiele or Kokoschka we'll never know. He might enjoy going to the museum after working out or headshotting some shitters like me.
Nah, we all know who he meant.
I just hate that we all know who he meant.
Just like that, CSGO is no more. There was no celebration of it's tenure, of the joy and tears that the game brought to millions of players. Instead it went quietly into the night. With servers being taken offline as players finished their matches for unknowingly the last time.
By the evening of September 27, 2023. Counter Strike Global Offensive ceased to exist. It's store page removed from Steam, replaced with Counter Strike 2. Every other Counter Strike game is playable and accessible through community servers, and while CS2 is really just a port of CSGO, it seems disrespectful to completely remove one of Valve's most successful games entirely from its store. We would not be taking about CS2 if CSGO did not succeed.
11 years ago, CSGO was released in a broken, nearly unplayable mess. But fans stuck to the game, waiting patiently with each update for the game to improve. I was there for it all. The infamous Deagle update, Aztec existing, the skin betting scandal, and watching Skadoodle raise that Major trophy. Watching CSGO grow from a niche FPS, to the juggernaut it is now known as was something special to watch and be a part of.
I've grown with this series. Starting in 2011 on Counter Strike: Source, and quickly making the jump to CSGO the following year. I've made some unforgettable friends who have all mostly moved on to other things in life, but those memories will always sit with me. By the time another Counter Strike is released I will likely be in my 40s, and this franchise will have been a part of nearly half my life. By this point, I don't know if there will be another piece of media that will devote as much of my time as CS has.
So to anyone that hopped online, and maybe we shared a game together. Thanks. It's been a great ride.
By the evening of September 27, 2023. Counter Strike Global Offensive ceased to exist. It's store page removed from Steam, replaced with Counter Strike 2. Every other Counter Strike game is playable and accessible through community servers, and while CS2 is really just a port of CSGO, it seems disrespectful to completely remove one of Valve's most successful games entirely from its store. We would not be taking about CS2 if CSGO did not succeed.
11 years ago, CSGO was released in a broken, nearly unplayable mess. But fans stuck to the game, waiting patiently with each update for the game to improve. I was there for it all. The infamous Deagle update, Aztec existing, the skin betting scandal, and watching Skadoodle raise that Major trophy. Watching CSGO grow from a niche FPS, to the juggernaut it is now known as was something special to watch and be a part of.
I've grown with this series. Starting in 2011 on Counter Strike: Source, and quickly making the jump to CSGO the following year. I've made some unforgettable friends who have all mostly moved on to other things in life, but those memories will always sit with me. By the time another Counter Strike is released I will likely be in my 40s, and this franchise will have been a part of nearly half my life. By this point, I don't know if there will be another piece of media that will devote as much of my time as CS has.
So to anyone that hopped online, and maybe we shared a game together. Thanks. It's been a great ride.
Outer Wilds
2019
This review contains spoilers
…….Wow
Outer Wilds is beautiful, plain and simple, it is a one of a kind experience that you truly can’t get in any other piece of media out there………and I absolutely love it.
Before I say anything else though, let me make one thing clear, PLAY THIS GAME BEFORE YOU READ ANY REVIEWS, the less you know, the better it is, come back here and read once you’re done
This is a game that truly does not tell you anything, other games elude to this idea, but most of them do have something that clues you in, even the soulsborne series has some general pointers and some sort of indicators on where you should go.
This game doesn’t even have that, it lets the player discover things completely on their own, it lets us go do anything on our own accord, want to go to those two planets circling closest to the sun? Go for it, want to go to the planet with a black hole in the center, sure why not? Want to go to the giant green planet with tornados and a massive ocean, do it! Want to go to hell, oh I’m sorry, I mean Dark Bramble, why not? It goes so far with not telling you anything that the game doesn’t even tell you about the supernova that occurs every 22 minutes…………WAIT WHAT. dies in a blinding blue light
………….wakes up huh, that’s neat, I guess this brings me around to the time loop mechanic, which I think is very well utilized, 22 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, shit it’s the amount of time it takes me to get up and get coffee in the morning, so I can only imagine what our 4 eyed buddy has to go through when searching for ancient artifacts of a long dead civilization.
However, despite how short it sounds, it’s almost always enough time to do things in the game, much like Majora’s Mask, every loop basically forces you to make a plan to explore something, whether that be the hanging city in Brittle Hollow, the quantum training tower thing on Giant’s Deep, the sunless city on the ember twin, there’s a lot to do and you most plan accordingly, of course your first few loops, you’ll have no idea what you should do, hell most of my early loops were either me careening into the sun on accident, me crashing into planets at a very fast speed, or falling into brittle hollow’s black hole over and over again, but no matter what happens to you, you learn, you learn how to avoid the sun and careen into it, you navigate around the black hole in brittle hollow, you learn that you should STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM GIANT’S DEEP AND ESPECIALLY DARK BRAMBLE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME, and a lot of other lessons, skills and smart thinking are what you’ll need in order to explore this solar system…….ah, a nice bright day out isn’t it……………wait, it’s the evening, why is it bright our?……….OH SHIT dies again in a blinding blue light
…………wakes up WHATAHAT………very odd, very odd indeed, anyways, speaking of the solar system, let’s talk about it, the game’s separate planets and worlds are just perfect, holy shit I love each of these places, each one serves a vital role in the game’s story and role, and it makes use of all of them, the hourglass twin planets are fantastic, I love the rising sand mechanic on ember, and the uncovering of ash that happens throughout the current cycle, Timber Hearth is a cozy little starting area, it’s a nice little planet that still has plenty of secrets to uncover, brittle hollow is a very interesting planet, the discovery of the planet slowly falling apart as the cycle goes on, it’s very cool, and that’s just the beginning, there’s so much to explore underneath the surface, and I’ll just leave that discovery to you all, Giant’s Deep is probably my favorite of all the planets, a planet that’s 80% ocean, 20% land, 1000% tornadoes, visually it’s just gigantic, completely daunting, but you start to pull back the layers and see more, whether that be the islands that frequently launch into space, the tower hidden in the planet’s largest tornado, or the cannon hidden in its core, you certainly have a lot on your plate in this place…………..and finally there’s Dark Bramble.
Dark fucking Bramble, I love this place but I also hate it, it’s a fucking terrifying planet, like giant’s deep is scary at first but then the fear kinda goes away, but with Dark Bramble, nah, fear is constant here, why is it terrifying, I’ll tell you, out of every place in the ENTIRE (base) GAME, this is the only one that has enemies, not just any enemies, giant fucking anglerfish, let me tell you about the anglerfish, they hide very easily with the lights emitting off the nose entrances, so you never see one until it’s too late, and once you’re near them, let me tell you even more, they’re 1. Bigger than you and your ship, 2. Faster than you and your ship, and 3. Can very easily swallow you and your ship whole, leading to instant death…….but they do have one weakness, they can’t see shit, so just be quiet around them……….Dark Bramble is fucking scary and it is a great addition to the solar system.
There are other small things too, the sun station is a cool lore place and pretty terrifying being that close to the sun, the interloper is in the grand scheme of the game’s story, completely optional, but it does show how the nomai ultimately went extinct so that’s cool, another completely optional thing that I only realized was optional after beating the game was the Quantum Moon, a moon that teleports around the various planets in the solar system, and served as a trial for the nomai to go through, you can barely count it as optional considering how much the wall tablets mention it, so naturally you’d become morbidly interested in it like me………..dies again in a blinding blue light
………..wakes up I BARELY EVEN SAW THAT ONE……………anyway, I guess I’ll get into major spoilers now, I recommend really clicking off, there’s been a spoiler here and there but I’ll be talking about the deeper lore and the game’s finale, so click off now.
This game’s lore is fantastic, the story of the nomai is super captivating and phenomenally told, basically these guys came to the universe seeking refuge and after a thing later dubbed the “eye of the universe” had called out to them, however their Vessel ended up crashing into Dark Bramble, as it was going in, three escape pods launched out, one landing in a different node of Dark Bramble, another landing on Ember Twin, the last one landing on Brittle Hollow, the nomai on the Dark Bramble escape pod eventually perished, but the other two pods of people flourished, making multiple things in an attempt to reach the eye of the universe, stuff like the ash twin project, the black hole forge, the probe cannon, the sun station, and many other things.
Through the writings left behind by the nomai, you learn about what they built, their dreams of reaching the eye of the universe, and ultimately finding out why they were drawn here……….however failure struck them multiple times, the ash twin project and sun station were a dud since the sun couldn’t be manually supernova’d, and that made the ash twin project basically useless to them, and alas, they ended up meeting their end when the comet dubbed “The Interloper” came into the solar system, and when they tried to explore it, it ended up releasing ghost matter across the solar system, and wiped them out.
But, ultimately with all their information at hand, you push through, ultimately putting the pieces together where the nomai couldn’t, and you find out that with the warp core of the ash twin project, the coordinates inside the probe cannon, and the power of the vessel deep in Dark Bramble, you finally learn the way to the eye of the universe.
Now here’s my experience with my final loop of the game, I rushed over to Ash Twin to get into the project and get the warp core, after several minutes of waiting, I got into the project and took the core out, once I got back to my ship, a triumphant mix of the time loop near end theme started playing, with that burst of motivation from the song, I quickly flew to Dark Bramble, said fuck it and went straight into the nest node without even marking the vessel location, after a very close call with the anglerfish, I made it to the vessel, put the core and the coordinates in, and was taken to the eye of the universe……….I get off the vessel and go to the eye’s surface, and………..what’s that blue light in the distance? OH SHIT THE SUPERNO—………oh wait, that ain’t reaching me now, HAH!
I continue on into the darkness, I will say that along with the discovery of the anglerfish and the first time entering the quantum moon, this is one of the most ominous parts of the game, but I push through and fall into the giant………hole? I think, in the sky, leading me to what I think is the insides of the eye…………then I’m transported out of the universe…….or am I? Cause next thing you know, you’re in a forest…….you end up exploring a bit until a campfire appears, and one of your friends along with it, you explore the area more and get more of your friends to join around the campfire, once all are there, a song is played, which creates this……..uh, circular vortex? Which then blasts you and your friends far away, and after a bit of silence and pitch blackness………BOOOM, a Big Bang basically happens.
Over 14 billion years later, it shows a new solar system forming, and with that, the game ends.
Ah……it’s simply wonderful, Outer Wilds is a one of a kind experience, I didn’t even talk about everything I adored, the game’s art style is beautiful, the soundtrack is just so fucking good, the atmosphere is top notch, and much much more man………..but I’ll end it here, now I sit in my room, with a bittersweet feeling, while there’s a sadness knowing I can’t experience this game a second time, there’s an ultimately happy feeling as well, one that’s so happy that he got experience a piece of media like this one.
Outer Wilds is beautiful, plain and simple, it is a one of a kind experience that you truly can’t get in any other piece of media out there………and I absolutely love it.
Before I say anything else though, let me make one thing clear, PLAY THIS GAME BEFORE YOU READ ANY REVIEWS, the less you know, the better it is, come back here and read once you’re done
This is a game that truly does not tell you anything, other games elude to this idea, but most of them do have something that clues you in, even the soulsborne series has some general pointers and some sort of indicators on where you should go.
This game doesn’t even have that, it lets the player discover things completely on their own, it lets us go do anything on our own accord, want to go to those two planets circling closest to the sun? Go for it, want to go to the planet with a black hole in the center, sure why not? Want to go to the giant green planet with tornados and a massive ocean, do it! Want to go to hell, oh I’m sorry, I mean Dark Bramble, why not? It goes so far with not telling you anything that the game doesn’t even tell you about the supernova that occurs every 22 minutes…………WAIT WHAT. dies in a blinding blue light
………….wakes up huh, that’s neat, I guess this brings me around to the time loop mechanic, which I think is very well utilized, 22 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, shit it’s the amount of time it takes me to get up and get coffee in the morning, so I can only imagine what our 4 eyed buddy has to go through when searching for ancient artifacts of a long dead civilization.
However, despite how short it sounds, it’s almost always enough time to do things in the game, much like Majora’s Mask, every loop basically forces you to make a plan to explore something, whether that be the hanging city in Brittle Hollow, the quantum training tower thing on Giant’s Deep, the sunless city on the ember twin, there’s a lot to do and you most plan accordingly, of course your first few loops, you’ll have no idea what you should do, hell most of my early loops were either me careening into the sun on accident, me crashing into planets at a very fast speed, or falling into brittle hollow’s black hole over and over again, but no matter what happens to you, you learn, you learn how to avoid the sun and careen into it, you navigate around the black hole in brittle hollow, you learn that you should STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM GIANT’S DEEP AND ESPECIALLY DARK BRAMBLE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME, and a lot of other lessons, skills and smart thinking are what you’ll need in order to explore this solar system…….ah, a nice bright day out isn’t it……………wait, it’s the evening, why is it bright our?……….OH SHIT dies again in a blinding blue light
…………wakes up WHATAHAT………very odd, very odd indeed, anyways, speaking of the solar system, let’s talk about it, the game’s separate planets and worlds are just perfect, holy shit I love each of these places, each one serves a vital role in the game’s story and role, and it makes use of all of them, the hourglass twin planets are fantastic, I love the rising sand mechanic on ember, and the uncovering of ash that happens throughout the current cycle, Timber Hearth is a cozy little starting area, it’s a nice little planet that still has plenty of secrets to uncover, brittle hollow is a very interesting planet, the discovery of the planet slowly falling apart as the cycle goes on, it’s very cool, and that’s just the beginning, there’s so much to explore underneath the surface, and I’ll just leave that discovery to you all, Giant’s Deep is probably my favorite of all the planets, a planet that’s 80% ocean, 20% land, 1000% tornadoes, visually it’s just gigantic, completely daunting, but you start to pull back the layers and see more, whether that be the islands that frequently launch into space, the tower hidden in the planet’s largest tornado, or the cannon hidden in its core, you certainly have a lot on your plate in this place…………..and finally there’s Dark Bramble.
Dark fucking Bramble, I love this place but I also hate it, it’s a fucking terrifying planet, like giant’s deep is scary at first but then the fear kinda goes away, but with Dark Bramble, nah, fear is constant here, why is it terrifying, I’ll tell you, out of every place in the ENTIRE (base) GAME, this is the only one that has enemies, not just any enemies, giant fucking anglerfish, let me tell you about the anglerfish, they hide very easily with the lights emitting off the nose entrances, so you never see one until it’s too late, and once you’re near them, let me tell you even more, they’re 1. Bigger than you and your ship, 2. Faster than you and your ship, and 3. Can very easily swallow you and your ship whole, leading to instant death…….but they do have one weakness, they can’t see shit, so just be quiet around them……….Dark Bramble is fucking scary and it is a great addition to the solar system.
There are other small things too, the sun station is a cool lore place and pretty terrifying being that close to the sun, the interloper is in the grand scheme of the game’s story, completely optional, but it does show how the nomai ultimately went extinct so that’s cool, another completely optional thing that I only realized was optional after beating the game was the Quantum Moon, a moon that teleports around the various planets in the solar system, and served as a trial for the nomai to go through, you can barely count it as optional considering how much the wall tablets mention it, so naturally you’d become morbidly interested in it like me………..dies again in a blinding blue light
………..wakes up I BARELY EVEN SAW THAT ONE……………anyway, I guess I’ll get into major spoilers now, I recommend really clicking off, there’s been a spoiler here and there but I’ll be talking about the deeper lore and the game’s finale, so click off now.
This game’s lore is fantastic, the story of the nomai is super captivating and phenomenally told, basically these guys came to the universe seeking refuge and after a thing later dubbed the “eye of the universe” had called out to them, however their Vessel ended up crashing into Dark Bramble, as it was going in, three escape pods launched out, one landing in a different node of Dark Bramble, another landing on Ember Twin, the last one landing on Brittle Hollow, the nomai on the Dark Bramble escape pod eventually perished, but the other two pods of people flourished, making multiple things in an attempt to reach the eye of the universe, stuff like the ash twin project, the black hole forge, the probe cannon, the sun station, and many other things.
Through the writings left behind by the nomai, you learn about what they built, their dreams of reaching the eye of the universe, and ultimately finding out why they were drawn here……….however failure struck them multiple times, the ash twin project and sun station were a dud since the sun couldn’t be manually supernova’d, and that made the ash twin project basically useless to them, and alas, they ended up meeting their end when the comet dubbed “The Interloper” came into the solar system, and when they tried to explore it, it ended up releasing ghost matter across the solar system, and wiped them out.
But, ultimately with all their information at hand, you push through, ultimately putting the pieces together where the nomai couldn’t, and you find out that with the warp core of the ash twin project, the coordinates inside the probe cannon, and the power of the vessel deep in Dark Bramble, you finally learn the way to the eye of the universe.
Now here’s my experience with my final loop of the game, I rushed over to Ash Twin to get into the project and get the warp core, after several minutes of waiting, I got into the project and took the core out, once I got back to my ship, a triumphant mix of the time loop near end theme started playing, with that burst of motivation from the song, I quickly flew to Dark Bramble, said fuck it and went straight into the nest node without even marking the vessel location, after a very close call with the anglerfish, I made it to the vessel, put the core and the coordinates in, and was taken to the eye of the universe……….I get off the vessel and go to the eye’s surface, and………..what’s that blue light in the distance? OH SHIT THE SUPERNO—………oh wait, that ain’t reaching me now, HAH!
I continue on into the darkness, I will say that along with the discovery of the anglerfish and the first time entering the quantum moon, this is one of the most ominous parts of the game, but I push through and fall into the giant………hole? I think, in the sky, leading me to what I think is the insides of the eye…………then I’m transported out of the universe…….or am I? Cause next thing you know, you’re in a forest…….you end up exploring a bit until a campfire appears, and one of your friends along with it, you explore the area more and get more of your friends to join around the campfire, once all are there, a song is played, which creates this……..uh, circular vortex? Which then blasts you and your friends far away, and after a bit of silence and pitch blackness………BOOOM, a Big Bang basically happens.
Over 14 billion years later, it shows a new solar system forming, and with that, the game ends.
Ah……it’s simply wonderful, Outer Wilds is a one of a kind experience, I didn’t even talk about everything I adored, the game’s art style is beautiful, the soundtrack is just so fucking good, the atmosphere is top notch, and much much more man………..but I’ll end it here, now I sit in my room, with a bittersweet feeling, while there’s a sadness knowing I can’t experience this game a second time, there’s an ultimately happy feeling as well, one that’s so happy that he got experience a piece of media like this one.
This and the Lego games were my first and only exposure to the prequels until like 8 years ago and I wish it stayed that way.
Death Stranding
2019
É um jogo muito bonito, os gráficos e os cenários são maravilhosos. A história também é muito interessante, mas acho que minha praia já não é mais mundo aberto. To no esforço pra seguir jogando, não que isso faça o jogo ser ruim.
Street Fighter 6
2023
modern controls are a godsend for a casual player like me. i had a blast with my friends for two weeks, command-grabbing people with Manon's dance moves and spamming JP's silly projectiles and floor spikes. hit platinum and then peaced the fuck out to go live my life and touch grass
Good sequels take the original and twist it into a new shape, reinforcing and undermining everything that came before at the same time. And MGS2 is a great sequel. MGS1, refracted on itself in a feedback loop until it becomes an upgrade, a derivative slog, its own twisted bizzaro world nightmare of itself.
The geopolitics have somehow become more absurd, as it was the only way to make them more insightful. The US develops metal gears. Russia steals them. Every intelligence agency in both countries probably thinks Ocelot is a triple agent for them. "Intelligence" is actually a myth, and if you think you possess any then you're being played, if you trust anyone then their plan is working. Patriot is a bad word. It probably should be. The villains are terrorists. The terrorists are eco terrorists, or are they pro metal gear, or are they anti metal gear, or are they anti American (after all, they are exmilitary), or is it about something else entirely? Who cares what they want or where they came from anyway? They're terrorists (the kind with a capital T). The terrorists' leader is a secret genetic experiment who was maybe designed by the illuminati. Who is also the former president of the United States. Imagine joe biden running around in a Doc Oc suit committing terrorist acts off the shores of New York. That's what we're working with here. (Btw nearly all of this information is revealed during the introductory cutscenes.)
The game feels like such a departure from the cold, dry militarism of the first. It tries to stand out in every way, except for its gameplay, polished to an inhuman level. Even when trying to be cynical, the game can't help itself from making cool & memorable environments, bosses, characters, aesthetics. Names are pulled from Paul Auster stories, the credits end with smooth lounge music, all the rain and the skyline and the politics, its characters all live in New York or lived in New York and it's all so singular for a military action game setting. The credits song is great, but the same could be said for every other song on the soundtrack. There's lots of little things to unlock, too, in the main game or as rewards for completion or whatever. There's an entire new set of VR missions attached, with their own entirely separate soundtrack. There's a bonus skateboarding mode. It's easy to overlook the countless small things this game does right in favor of the monolithic insane psychotic shit that's the staple of the whole series.
Mgs2 is always up to something, always operating on some unseen level that goes one step beyond what it's willing to show you. It's like playing the first game all over again, re-experiencing that moment when you're like "wait why tf is this boss doing literal magic?" It lies to you. You think it's a spy game, but secretly it is another spy game, that is secretly is a different spy game, but secretly it was actually designed to reach through your tv and kill you in real life the whole time. And then the current president of the United States shows up and grabs your junk.
The geopolitics have somehow become more absurd, as it was the only way to make them more insightful. The US develops metal gears. Russia steals them. Every intelligence agency in both countries probably thinks Ocelot is a triple agent for them. "Intelligence" is actually a myth, and if you think you possess any then you're being played, if you trust anyone then their plan is working. Patriot is a bad word. It probably should be. The villains are terrorists. The terrorists are eco terrorists, or are they pro metal gear, or are they anti metal gear, or are they anti American (after all, they are exmilitary), or is it about something else entirely? Who cares what they want or where they came from anyway? They're terrorists (the kind with a capital T). The terrorists' leader is a secret genetic experiment who was maybe designed by the illuminati. Who is also the former president of the United States. Imagine joe biden running around in a Doc Oc suit committing terrorist acts off the shores of New York. That's what we're working with here. (Btw nearly all of this information is revealed during the introductory cutscenes.)
The game feels like such a departure from the cold, dry militarism of the first. It tries to stand out in every way, except for its gameplay, polished to an inhuman level. Even when trying to be cynical, the game can't help itself from making cool & memorable environments, bosses, characters, aesthetics. Names are pulled from Paul Auster stories, the credits end with smooth lounge music, all the rain and the skyline and the politics, its characters all live in New York or lived in New York and it's all so singular for a military action game setting. The credits song is great, but the same could be said for every other song on the soundtrack. There's lots of little things to unlock, too, in the main game or as rewards for completion or whatever. There's an entire new set of VR missions attached, with their own entirely separate soundtrack. There's a bonus skateboarding mode. It's easy to overlook the countless small things this game does right in favor of the monolithic insane psychotic shit that's the staple of the whole series.
Mgs2 is always up to something, always operating on some unseen level that goes one step beyond what it's willing to show you. It's like playing the first game all over again, re-experiencing that moment when you're like "wait why tf is this boss doing literal magic?" It lies to you. You think it's a spy game, but secretly it is another spy game, that is secretly is a different spy game, but secretly it was actually designed to reach through your tv and kill you in real life the whole time. And then the current president of the United States shows up and grabs your junk.
All time favorite game possibly ever. I've beaten it a total of 9 times. Cannot state how much this game means to me. There are so many beautiful little details in it, and the story is just brilliant and heart breaking. The best the series has to offer in my opinion.
Abzu
2016
an aesthetically pleasing game inspired by the likes of journey, and as a certified thalassophobic fish lover i can say that i enjoyed it. couldn't make any sense of the story though
Journey
2012
A lot of holding forward. Did not seem very gameplay-focused. Pretty short for a game without much replay value. Visually stunning however, and the parts where I met people were great.
Counter-Strike 1.6
2000
"...the phantom, exterior like fish eggs- interior like suicide wrist red- I can exercise you- this could be your Phys. Ed- cheat on your man homi-AAAAGHHHH try to sneak through the door man! Can't make it. Can't make it the shit's STUCK!!! OUTTA MY WAY SON!!!! DOOOOOOOOR STUCK!!!!!!!!!!! DOOOOOOOOOOOOR STUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!
I BEG YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
CS 1.6 isn't as bombastic or content-packed as some of its contemporaries like say- UT99, but its tense, high stakes game modes, tactical gunplay, and excellent map design provide a boatload of good times regardless.
PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!
I BEG YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
CS 1.6 isn't as bombastic or content-packed as some of its contemporaries like say- UT99, but its tense, high stakes game modes, tactical gunplay, and excellent map design provide a boatload of good times regardless.
Counter-Strike 1.6
2000
We used to play this a ton during breaks in school and during computer class. I also remember going to "Cybers" to play it with random people.
Project M made this game leaps and bounds better for sure, but you cant deny its impact. Subspace Emissary was the greatest story mode in any of the Smash games
Plants vs. Zombies
2009
Nearly perfect. The gameplay loop is very simplistic and satisfying. I just wish there was a little more to do in it but otherwise very well done
Tears of the Kingdom marks a bold new iteration in this new age of Zelda projects that hearken back to the series roots. Many call this a flat upgrade to Breath of the Wild, and it's not difficult to see where that sentiment arrives from. Many features of the prequel have been reworked to impressive effect. The careful damage rebalancing keeps the game stable and challenging, especially when compared to Breath of the Wild. Perhaps the most notable upgrade are the four new spells -- Ascend, Fuse, Ultrahand and Rewind -- which propel the play-space to astronomical proportions. Regardless of these, I feel that Tears of the Kingdom strives for a notably different goal than Breath of the Wild, and is more successful at achieving it.
Breath of the Wild is a soulful, quiet game, asking the player to meditate on their journey with mechanics grounded in realism. The simulative aspect feels more attuned to immersion than playfulness, especially since it's rather difficult to get any of the wonky physics glitches of the Twitter-virality sort without a perfect understanding of the game rules and engine. Make a fire to stay alive in the cold. Equip rubber armor so a thundershock isn't lethal. These are the thought processes travelling through a Breath of the Wild player's mind.
Conversely, Tears of the Kingdom's mechanical layers opens up the world of Hyrule and recontextualizes it into a playful sandbox. You're not as concerned about surviving the night as you are what the next Geneva-convention-breaking gadget you'll use to terrorize local flora and fauna with. The lack of major changes to Hyrule has me floored with how this identical game world excels so well at supporting two different mechanical systems.
Tears of the Kingdom then double-dips back into the immersive quality of the prequel with the Sky Islands and the Depths, the two new world zones that exist above and below Hyrule's ground floor respectively. The Sky Islands put the players new toolset to the test with challenging vertical puzzles, while the Depths' deep dark blackness evokes the survivalist elements of Breath of the Wild.
Ultimately what pulls the whole package together is the epic journey that a newer, fresher, and bolder Link sets out on. The arrival of King Ganondorf feels appropriately daunting for a Link that has braved a whole Hyrule's worth of content before. Where Breath of the Wild feels like an underdog story, Tears of the Kingdom is a Greek epic; we stand off against horrors beyond human comprehension as a hero armed to the teeth with borderline cheat-code abilities.
There are still many flaws of the game, of course. The strongest one that comes to mind is the story, which meanders and makes meaningless narrative gestures until just before the end. The conclusion, however, is so satisfying and bombastic that it almost makes me want to retroactively forgive the rest of the game. Although it definitely left on a positive note, I would hope to see this as the element that is most developed in the future iterations of this kind of Zelda, especially since Breath of the Wild didn't have a particularly great story either compared to the previous entries in the series.
Breath of the Wild felt like one of those impossible games that despite a AAA scope and multiple hundreds of developers, managed to achieve a design elegance and artistic focus we only really see on smaller projects. Tears of the Kingdom aims even higher for a grander tale and managed to surpass it's predecessor. Despite a number of flaws I could probably count on my fingers and never reach my toes, this game is a tour-de-force of our medium and a new benchmark for AAA open-world games.
Breath of the Wild is a soulful, quiet game, asking the player to meditate on their journey with mechanics grounded in realism. The simulative aspect feels more attuned to immersion than playfulness, especially since it's rather difficult to get any of the wonky physics glitches of the Twitter-virality sort without a perfect understanding of the game rules and engine. Make a fire to stay alive in the cold. Equip rubber armor so a thundershock isn't lethal. These are the thought processes travelling through a Breath of the Wild player's mind.
Conversely, Tears of the Kingdom's mechanical layers opens up the world of Hyrule and recontextualizes it into a playful sandbox. You're not as concerned about surviving the night as you are what the next Geneva-convention-breaking gadget you'll use to terrorize local flora and fauna with. The lack of major changes to Hyrule has me floored with how this identical game world excels so well at supporting two different mechanical systems.
Tears of the Kingdom then double-dips back into the immersive quality of the prequel with the Sky Islands and the Depths, the two new world zones that exist above and below Hyrule's ground floor respectively. The Sky Islands put the players new toolset to the test with challenging vertical puzzles, while the Depths' deep dark blackness evokes the survivalist elements of Breath of the Wild.
Ultimately what pulls the whole package together is the epic journey that a newer, fresher, and bolder Link sets out on. The arrival of King Ganondorf feels appropriately daunting for a Link that has braved a whole Hyrule's worth of content before. Where Breath of the Wild feels like an underdog story, Tears of the Kingdom is a Greek epic; we stand off against horrors beyond human comprehension as a hero armed to the teeth with borderline cheat-code abilities.
There are still many flaws of the game, of course. The strongest one that comes to mind is the story, which meanders and makes meaningless narrative gestures until just before the end. The conclusion, however, is so satisfying and bombastic that it almost makes me want to retroactively forgive the rest of the game. Although it definitely left on a positive note, I would hope to see this as the element that is most developed in the future iterations of this kind of Zelda, especially since Breath of the Wild didn't have a particularly great story either compared to the previous entries in the series.
Breath of the Wild felt like one of those impossible games that despite a AAA scope and multiple hundreds of developers, managed to achieve a design elegance and artistic focus we only really see on smaller projects. Tears of the Kingdom aims even higher for a grander tale and managed to surpass it's predecessor. Despite a number of flaws I could probably count on my fingers and never reach my toes, this game is a tour-de-force of our medium and a new benchmark for AAA open-world games.