A very silly novelty that kind of wears thin after an hour or so. The comparisons to Lethal Company are obvious, but I think the true appeal is actually more in line with a Jackbox game. A lot of the fun and entertainment will come from how much your friends can improv and make up goofy shit on the fly even in the face of direct danger, which is a very different appeal from Lethal Company’s more trial and error goal focused rogue-lite appeal. Content Warning’s peak of comedy comes from the end result of your misadventures in that Jackbox fashion, getting a conclusion that everybody gets to laugh about and share on a Discord server to be forever memorialized, whereas Lethal Company is more laughing at your friends’ misery and terror as an onlooker who just suffered the same fate moments ago.

My problem with Content Warning is more just the longevity of it is clearly a lot shorter than its inspirations. The later game upgrades and unlockables don’t have enough of an appeal to keep pushing on for the money that nets you them, even if it is nice that the money economy is a lot more forgiving on player deaths and screwups. Content Warning feels like recording a haunted house with your friends, while Lethal Company feels like walking into the IKEA SCP with your friends and making the best of a bad situation. Different appeals and goals, but one of them has more of a lasting impression than the other does.

For $20 dollars for those who upgraded from the PS4 version? Yeah I dunno. Square's always been pretty bad with their DLC prices and this does feel too short even if you go out of your way to do the side content. I feel like I also would've appreciated Intermission a lot more if I played it right after finishing the base game but with my luck, I held off until beyond the last minute when Rebirth is now out and I'm in a hurry to catch up so the combat system and locations aren't quite as fresh in my mind. Some fights feel a bit overtuned and punish you for not quite getting how to build Yuffie and Sonon to be their most effective right at the very end of the game. I might have more appreciation for the updated mechanics and play style if I ever go back to replay Remake itself, but as it stands it's just fine.

I have a lot more appreciation for Intermission story-wise; Yuffie never really was a favorite of mine because aloof loud rambunctious characters aren't my thing as well as her limited role within the story of the original FF7 due to technically being an optional party member. Intermission (and very likely Rebirth from the looks of things) aims to fix this by incorporating her into the main plot events much earlier. Her personality is still aloof as ever, but there's more depth and background added beneath the poppy attitude alongside the addition of Sonon. There's some very good interplay with the war between Wutai and Shinra as well as implied bad blood between a split branch of Avalanche and Wutai, and watching Yuffie having to face the reality of the situation at hand and realizing that it's not as surface-level as she initially believed is one of the best parts of telling this new story with the opportunity that the remake trilogy is giving with this cast and world. I do think a certain reveal right at the very end will throw people off who haven't played some of the spin-off entries in FF7's universe and not quite get all the fuss that it builds up, but knowing Nomura and the overall vision with what Remake is going for, I don't really mind and am just here for the ride.

It's a good extra story chapter or two that's worthwhile to play, but mostly if it came with your copy with Intergrade on PC or PS5. If you upgraded from the PS4 version, the regular $20 dollar asking price is steep as per Square Enix usual and I don't know quite how essential it really is at that point. Wait for a sale if you're stuck in that position.

Very happy that we're back to pretty solid groundwork here after how bad the last two Chapter 4 seasons were, but I also don't think this first version of the new map is as good as what Chapter 4 started with. There's not enough distinct points of interests on this new map and the biomes feel very samey, especially when at some point they melted away a part of the snow area only serving to further make the map feel more bland visually. Making the train a focal point is incredibly strange when it really doesn't add much outside of some obnoxious weekly quests that Epic would later replace because of how frustrating they were. Thankfully I can at least expect the map to only get better from here with more variety on later seasons.

Talking about Chapter 5's first season can't really be limited to just Battle Royale changes though because this new chapter (or just overall upcoming year) marks the point of Epic trying even harder to expand Fortnite to something beyond just a shooter and something more expansive, playing more into the "metaverse" idea that they've been marketing harder towards. I have more extensive thoughts for each gamemode but honestly the most I can say for them overall is that they're pretty basic starts that I expected a fair bit more of for how much they were trying to push them as entire new "games" inside of Fortnite. They aren't. At least not yet. Time will only tell how much of this endeavor is going to pay off or not, but Epic really needs to step it up if it's ever going to. Festival is my favorite of the three modes, but there's absolutely a personal bias for how much I like Guitar Hero/Rock Band as well as how much Harmonix has publicly stated their future plans for the mode (namely actual proper guitar controller support), unlike Lego Fortnite or Rocket Racing which I have very little idea of where their primary goals or roadmap really looks like.

The shop was a mess this whole season because of how much having to support Lego Fortnite skin comparability butchered what Epic could have available. Good for my wallet, probably not great for the thousands of players who were used to the pretty regular rotation of old and new skins that were normally available. The TMNT pass had a really cool Shredder skin that I sadly gave into, but I feel gross for paying that much for it alongside the rest of the skins that were overpriced in the shop for the crossover. All cosmetics for the new gamemodes are even worse in pricing and I will genuinely be in shock if Epic keeps them like that next season.

A pretty good start for another year of the game. I'm probably placing more faith in later seasons doing more interesting things than I probably should be, but here's hoping that we get something as good as the MEGA season from Chapter 4 maybe.

Embarrassingly bad netcode and collision detection issues only serve as icing to a cake that hasn't baked for long enough. There just isn't enough depth here to actually encourage dedicated playtime outside of the easy battle pass XP that it rewards with few ways of meaningfully competing and outmaneuvering other players outside of getting lucky if they happen to screw up. Unlike LEGO Fortnite and Fortnite Festival which at least have the groundwork for something more interesting to potentially come in their futures, Rocket Racing is lacking something that could meaningfully keep the mode going long-term unless something changes fundamentally at its core. Whether that's adding items or something, I don't really know, but I just can't see myself wanting to actively play this for fun outside of an easy daily or two for the foreseeable future if something doesn't change soon.

I'm not going to give this like a half star and say it's demon spawn from the depths of this industry or something like that. I think there's a reason why so many people immediately latched onto this thing because there's the potential of this thing being another survival game with a unique hook that could last for hours upon hours while standing out from the likes of your typical Minecraft, Valheim, ARK, etc kinda games. But I don't think that product is fully here yet, and I'm wary of whether or not Pocketpair will capitalize on their ridiculous massive success with this thing. Craftopia hasn't been abandoned necessarily but it's been in early access for 3 years now with no clear signs of leaving anytime soon, and this is another title on top of that one.

I'm also not going to dismiss this game because of concerns about generative AI; I don't like generative AI assets one bit and the CEO of the company being a moron is concerning, but there aren't any signs of actual assets made by AI being in the game itself. This feels like a product made by proper human hands, just without a care for trying to actually hide the blatant subjects that it's ripping off. Nobody is being fooled by the Pokemon here, and I think Pocketpair was fully aware of it and fully played into it as a selling point, and I think it worked in their favor.

But I'm going to refund the game because while I see the ground works of what could be something much more extensive and potentially special, it's only if Pocketpair can actually prove they weren't in over their heads with this. I would rather play something like Valheim for now with the more extensive progression and building mechanics that game has, let alone the sheer amount of polish that has over this. There's something about the game and knowing at least some of the previous history behind the company that makes me wary about giving into the hype of yet another early access game this early on that made me feel kind of weird and icky after a few hours of playing, that I probably should've spent the $26 bucks on something like Prince of Persia instead and let this one settle on where it's going before I really get invested. I'm not completely passing on this one, but I'm giving it like a good 6 months or so before I consider eyeing it up again.

I appreciate ambition and veering off in a different direction for a specific vision, especially one that to this day makes itself stand apart from even other entries in its franchise. I just don't think it was for me.

There's a clear obvious intent that GTA IV was meant to be different bold new direction for the series, not only to jump into a new generation of consoles but to restart from first base after the new highs and ambition that San Andreas had set. Unlike its predecessor which was concerned about the sheer scale of its content and variety, creating something unabashedly charming and actively engaging at every moment, IV is concerned about realism and being grounded. So many of its overhauled systems and structure are geared towards setting an oppressive tone, a different kind of immersion that's not based on "how do we make sure the player cannot possibly be bored at any second" but really making sure the player's firmly in the shoes of what sets Niko apart from every other protagonist in the series and the circumstances that led him to Liberty City. San Andreas wanted the player to not just be CJ but actively transform him into a power fantasy, something you earn over time with every activity you did as you gained control over every part of San Andreas you set foot in. Niko doesn't get to have that power fantasy even as he reaches towards the end of his journey, because every action you take are in the favor of those seemingly in control of that power, which in itself is also torn down to shreds as you quickly learn just how truly miserable and lacking that power of theirs actually is. The closest comparison here might actually be GTA 3, whom not only shares the same location (albeit mostly in name and a very general surface level similarity) but also an initially similar love for its crime lords and mafia gangs duking it out between each other as you change between sides as a yes man before taking matters into your own hands. But unlike 3, the crime lords and mafia gangs you're working for are nearly all drugged out of their minds, in far beyond over their heads for what they're actually dealing with, in a needless desperate hopeless cycle of petty killings just to maintain a status quo that all gets shattered in the end anyways. Claude, Tommy and CJ all get what they wanted in the end for the insane climb to power they go on. Niko only digs himself deeper into a hole that takes away everything from him for his selfish desires.

It's all a nihilistic self-defeating prophecy and vision that Rockstar does faithfully commit to from start to finish. But it's not a vision for me, over a decade after its release with so much other media with unique ideas and spins on cycles of violence, revenge, the falsehood of an "American dream", and just general nihilism. It's Rockstar's satire and edge at its most extreme to an unpleasant degree, and while I get on a surface level that it's why GTA IV is considered the best and darkest story in the series, it's also mind numbing to the core. For a game so deeply focused on wanting to create something "real", so many of its characters feel like South Park stereotypes being played up to their extremes. A lot of them you're not meant to like, only working with as a means to an end, but there's also others that you're just supposed to be indifferent or even like which is all the more baffling when body image obsessed definitely not gay Brucie's calling you as you drive around town asking to go to the strip club to go stare at tits like the real men you both are, or Little Jacob who essentially amounts to an always high on something that asks to go eat out at Burger King stereotype that eventually just serves as a convenient arms dealer to Niko that conveniently shows up towards the end of the game.

I've never liked the excuse of "it was just the times!" because in most cases for media I've seen it used for, I could equally argue that it was rotten from the beginning and it's especially true for just how much of a weird issue GTA IV seems to have against LGBTQ+ people. It's shockingly common for characters to just suddenly bring up how much they don't want to be gay or homosexual, to such a degree where it's used as a negative stigma, a point of comparison for an idea of something someone shouldn't be. A corrupt government officer wonders how Niko could think he's working for the FIB, "those homosexuals." Manny complains about how he's presented on live television by his cameraman's work, "making me look gay, like a transsexual." The only excuse GTA IV has for itself on the way it continually uses a group of poorly represented minorities as a stereotype not to be, is when it introduces Florian/Bernie, the most over the top extreme textbook definition of a gay man who lusts for a man running for city mayor that also happens to be cheating on his wife while using "family values" as his campaign selling point. Niko gets to call him a slur only to then say right at the very end what a good friend Bernie is even if the man he loves is a hypocrite and should do better. Great fucking representation Rockstar, A+ work right there. "It was just the times!" is an excuse that does not fly in my book for this game because Rockstar managed to go three whole mainline GTA games without needing to kick down towards a group of people like this, and because it frankly just reeks of that weird feeling South Park gives off whenever people try to defend the targets it uses for bad taste humor. GTA IV doesn't make everyone a "target", I know it because I just played through the fucking game. There's characters it represents with a genuine honesty that stick with you, like Little Jacob's Jamaican background and incredibly strong accent that never dares to reach for a "can you translate that for me" joke, earning my respect despite how much I don't think he's that interesting of a character story-wise. I shouldn't have to give the game a free pass because it came out in the mid to late 2000s because I have played games in that era and console generation that didn't need to talk down and poorly misrepresent something I feel personally strongly about, let alone games in its own series and the same developer.

Beyond all that though and a bit less grim and upsetting, GTA IV does take new spins on the gameplay formula, and it's the part where I understand that I'm probably in a minority in for just not liking as much as its predecessor. I like game-y video games, and San Andreas fulfilled that want to a T, whereas GTA IV ends up taking away a lot of the sillier stuff like dancing rhythm games, playing dress up all the way to hair styles, working out and exercising to raise up stats; since IV wants to treat Niko as a character of his own and not something that the player gets to evolve, the formula has somewhat stepped back to the basics that GTA 3 actually started with. IV is almost entirely mission focused with only a small number of distractions and side things to go after, the majority of which I quickly grew tired of because they don't change no matter when or where you do them, and sometimes who you do them with. Bowling is a meme and all, but I don't even think it was that bad compared to having to constantly bring people to the pool table or the bar to raise up their friendship meters because otherwise they angrily text and call Niko about how crappy of a friend he is while you're in the middle of driving a truck filled with explosives to some gang you have to take out. Again, cool for the grounded realism! I see the vision there! And again, I just don't think it's for me.

A lot has been said about how vehicles control in IV. I understand the intent behind wanting to make the vehicles heavier, visibly weightier when they sway around off the ground and leaning to the sides when you make sharp turns at fast speeds, because Rockstar wanted to make driving a challenge after how admittedly easy San Andreas made driving around the city at stupid fast speeds and still nailing corners was. Driving around in essentially New York City in modern times should be tougher, and there's an element of satisfaction and tension when you are either chasing someone or are being chased by someone when every screw up means spinning out, watching everything get badly destroyed and bent out of shape, and just barely getting the gas moving again. But I also think the comparisons that vehicles in GTA IV feel like boats or sliding a wet bar of soap along the ground to be too accurate; the realism factor stops really being "real" and actually fun to play when vehicles can't make turns when going above 10 miles per hour, and frankly less skillful compared to all the stuff that San Andreas had a whole in-game driving school to teach you about how its physics worked. Going fast in that game felt exhilarating yet still meaningfully challenging because nice cars that could go fast weren't common and badly damaging them could seriously screw you over when the AI in that game could also drive incredibly fast. The vehicle physics are so undertuned here that even the AI seems to struggle with how cars are supposed to move around; if you even grasp the basic timings of when to slow down around corners and accelerate again, you'll be able to outrun all of the AI drivers in IV because none of them seem to know how to nail it down unless they are intentionally scripted to drive a certain way like in missions. I wouldn't even have an issue with how cars are generally slower period in this game compared to San Andreas if it wasn't for just how bad steering feels in this game and how much it cripples the experience in a series that involves driving cars so heavily.

Combat is an area that does feels meaningfully improved over its predecessors and is maybe the aspect I liked the most out of IV? Rockstar definitely took the criticisms of the PS2 era games to heart here because combat feels brutal and snappy, firefights come and go in that "realistic" instant when headshots always mean an instant kill, people stumble and scream out when shooting and getting shot at, and weapons feel and sound devastatingly impactful; the joke pea shooters of San Andreas are long gone here. The lock-on aiming for console/controllers was also improved to have an actual interactive skill element to it, now letting you try to aim for specific body parts for different reactions instead of being stuck always locked onto the chest unless you were at point blank range like San Andreas was. The snapping can be an annoyance, mainly whenever it just refuses to lock onto new opponents when they come into view unless you let go and hold the left trigger again or when Niko randomly snaps onto something completely separate from what you were just running towards or looking at. It's overall an improvement on what San Andreas set up, even if it fully makes sense why GTA V would later completely step away from the system and opt for more generic free aim with forgiving aim assist.

Rockstar deserves credit for being this bold with a mainstream AAA blockbuster release with a vision that wasn't only just making things prettier and more detailed for a more powerful generation of hardware, but also trying to reinvent the tone and direction the story they told went in a manner that I'm honestly shocked didn't spark more controversy with a general audience as well as fans of the series. It's a game that feels upset with the world but indifferent, not angry enough to change it and instead just continue going with the status quo no matter how terrible and oppressive it may be. It's the start of Rockstar spending countless hours building up insane technology that impresses to this day (even if the atrocious PC port still does not) and paying attention to little details few would probably notice until repeat playthroughs, and also where I think Rockstar's notorious satirical edge really began to show itself. I just also think it's too rough around the edges for me coming after an entry that was so purposefully endearing and charming at its core, happy that it was able to have fun with itself rather than wanting to say something and coming up short instead.

This should be like the poster child for what is actually meant by I want shorter games with worse graphics because this incredibly silly goofy little 40 minute shooter is so cozy and charming and yet still shows the hallmarks of what made Dusk's level design and gun play so satisfying and special, just in a smaller funnier package for 5 bucks

That soundtrack fucking slaps too

San Andreas may not fully resolve every single little issue I had with 3 and Vice City but rather instead more than makes up for those shortcomings by creating an immersive experience with a scale so ambitious and insane that not only am I in disbelief of this thing being originally made for the PS2, I'm still in awe of it playing for the first time nearly two decades after its original release in a modern era of video games with sequels and competitors that have long since succeeded it. I'm not even sure Rockstar themselves could ever fully recreate an experience like San Andreas, with a level of understanding on how to make the player feel like they've gone on this massive journey with these gradual curveballs both in story intermixed with gameplay in how they progress and discover every new element of the map, the places and objectives that missions take you on, and the characters that you still learn to care about as much as CJ does on the wild ride he's thrown out on. Where 3 and Vice City were concerned about creating a sandbox that players could just drive and shoot stuff in for whatever weird violent sprees the player wanted to go on, San Andreas is concerned about making you want to better CJ as a character including lifestyle elements and minigames that, as simple and jank as they can be, give crucial variety and spice that was desperately needed.

I think even more importantly for me, and what makes San Andreas still stand out to this day among Rockstar's catalog, is just how innocent it is. There may be some of Rockstar's trademark cynicism and satire without a doubt, but it doesn't plague the game beyond a small smattering of surface level side character personalities and radio humor. Gone is the run down dreariness of 3's Liberty City or the pop culture referential appeal of Vice City's 80s excess and all the commentary found within both, and instead is a world and story where the characters are treated with genuine attention and time, and with a level of self-respect even towards clearly insane out there characters like goofy weed jesus Truth or the conspiratorial clearly making shit up Toreno. It felt like Rockstar would be winking at the player knowing that yeah, the insane batshit stuff you will eventually get up to in these missions is clearly nuts and silly, but without then rolling their eyes and going "wow isn't this cuh-RA-zy" like how I remember GTA V eventually becoming. San Andreas wants you to be immersed within its world, and it truly believes in the player coming along for a ride that they're meant to be having fun on even when things get serious. For the number of times where I would irritated with some stinky missions or the still occasional crapshoot AI behavior and spawning, there would be hours of just even quietly enjoying myself riding through the country-side listening to radio stations that were clearly custom tailored to that location and tone before riding out into the next city beyond for the next mission as the sun was setting and the dust clouds rolled in as I crossed that bridge into the desert. And for a game almost 20 years old now, it still remains unparalleled in that memorable experience.

(I just also wish that Rockstar would have done a better job of preserving the original PS2 experience, and not just because of Definitive Edition's unfaithful visuals and bugs; the original PC port is frankly hot garbage and is more needlessly fiddly to mod than it really should be. I don't have the greatest guide on hand to fix the ports issues, but bare minimum downgrade the game's version and try to install SilentPatch and SkyGfx to fix bugs and restore the PS2 visuals, then keep the game locked to 30FPS because important scripts and physics were tied to the framerate. I also wish I didn't have to eventually give up and enable cheats right at the very end of the game to finish the territory stuff because the game kept crashing and making me lose hours of progress right before I was able to do the final mission. I'm sure emulating the PS2 version is an option, but it also feels like a lame copout with its own issues. Someday I'll try DE for real to see how it fares these days, but take this as a small cautionary warning if you're on PC.)

I'm honestly kind of surprised by how much pure vitriol this seems to be getting from folks on here compared to the far cry excitement I've seen from the Clone Hero community folks? Festival still has a long ways to go in terms of features, songs and especially visual polish, but the key thing that makes me enjoy it as much as I have so far is that it fits a somewhat unfulfilled niche of a casual and accessible rhythm game. I love rhythm games! I play way too much Project Diva to be considered healthy! I've definitely been getting more into DJMax Respect V ever since I caught it on a sale! All of those games are great, but they're great for someone like me who has spent likely hundreds to thousands of hours getting used to the harsh difficulty and learning curve of those games, and also likely more importantly I like the more foreign niche appeal of their set lists.

In terms of more current modern pop and rock songs, Guitar Hero/Rock Band leaving the rhythm game space as well as stuff like Just Dance becoming less popular have left a void in that space of music that I've had a good time with seeing again here with Festival. I do wish their launch picks were a bit more interesting, but like, I'm not going to deny that I've probably played the one Olivia Rodrigo song more times than I should be and that's reminiscent of the power older GH/RB games had for me. Discovering new current songs is entertaining and fun, and I don't need ridiculously insanely tough high-accuracy focused gameplay to completely seal the deal here. I don't really get why some are so shocked by the multiplier score-focused gameplay when that's always been how Guitar Hero and Rock Band has worked? Just don't miss?

The real issues for me at the moment is the sheer lack of visual variety compared to those predecessors and the pricing model. The notes desperately need to be color coded like those games because when some of the more overcharted songs come along, they're needlessly harder to read than they really need to be. The dances and motions the band have when playing songs also gets old fast, and that feeling of that high intensity concert energy being missing was only further emphasized for me when I recently tried out modding World Tour again and seeing just how wild the animations were for your characters. I miss having the audience chanting along with the music when you kept a high streak going, having the lead and vocals singing together every now and then, the close-ups of the guitar, the extra visual effects and filters for certain song segments; I could go on and on but this is one area that I really hope gets improved sooner than later. Seeing that stupid animation of the vocalist sliding back and forth playing three to four times in a row might actually drive me insane.

The pricing model is really the bigger deeper core issue here that I think only time is going to reveal the effects of however. Rhythm games have always had a difficult tug and pull balance regarding how do you reasonably price out extra songs for DLC, and Rock Band was always up there with being some of the worst in my mind because of the insistence toward individual songs at a high price rather than song packs which more recent rhythm games have pushed towards. Festival pushes the line way too far however with songs now costing $5 dollars each with the only extra benefits to supposedly justify it being you can use them as emotes in Battle Royale and the weird half-baked Jam Stage mode. Absolute utter snore. The Festival Pass also being separate from the already paid Battle Pass that the rest of the game uses is also really out there and priced far too high for what it offers, alongside the grind itself feeling like a slog. The whole model mostly concerns me at the moment because I get the worried feeling that this isn't going to meet Epic's sales expectations the way they hope it will, and I'm not excited for whatever possible "solutions" they might try to come up with as time goes on.

As it stands right now though? I still think this is a very fun mode that's genuinely been getting me to load up the game on a somewhat daily basis just to play a few songs, either on my own or with friends and trying to beat out our scores on the leaderboards, and while I love those harsher more difficult other rhythm games like DJMax, they don't compete in the accessibility and easy appeal factor like this does and that's a feeling I've missed for a while now. Hearing that Harmonix somehow convinced Epic and PDP to create a new guitar controller coming out very soon along with full instrument controller support might actually make me bust.

Vice City's vibe is fucking immaculate right from the very first minute of gameplay. I don't think any of the intros to these games, even the later newer ones, can beat out driving through the city at night on a scooter to your hotel room while Billie Jean plays on the radio, and that wild cozy feeling and vibe is something that emanates across the entire game. There's clearly so many learned lessons from GTA 3 present here as well, with noticeably better feeling guns as well as a bigger variety of them, the car handling is more refined and at least slightly more forgiving than 3 was, and having Tommy Vercetti being an actual character who has goals of his own compared to the yes man that Claude was does the story and side missions so many more favors in terms of personality.

But on the other hand, the middle portion of the game is such a slog to get through. It's really blatantly clear after a good 8 hours or so when the story missions suddenly halt themselves in favor of the asset missions that the rushed development time of less than a year really begins to show itself, and Vice City still doesn't really resolve my biggest problem with GTA 3 in that regard. There's still too many missions here that pull dickish shit on the player in a way that they will never be prepared for on a first run around, and it never feels satisfying when you pass one because you happened to get lucky on a run because of something like a car spawning in a way that conveniently blocks enemies from pursuing you or completely throwing off an opponent during a race that lets you easily win. Combat still feels like hot garbage, whether you're stuck with the original game's atrocious manual aiming that feels awful on controller or with mods that carry over San Andreas's lock-on mechanic but in a game that clearly wasn't designed for it in mind.

I love the vibe and sheer oozing personality of this game. Frankly it has probably my favorite set of radio stations across any of these games, and just driving through town and learning all the shortcuts and routes to your destinations feels good and satisfying more than 3 ever really did for me, and getting to the end of the story was still entertaining even if the ending is noticeably rushed through. But after playing through the newer games and even parts of San Andreas directly after this, it's still just too rough of a game for me to really thoroughly enjoy going back to. It's a decent game that had a hell of a lot more potential if Rockstar could have been given the time to do so.

Just kinda whatever? I'm surprised that for how long this was rumored/leaked to be happening for like the past year or so, the end product feels pretty barebones and not as well tested as it really should have been. A lot less LEGO Minecraft in Fortnite and more like a LEGO Valheim which annoyingly includes the stuff I don't like about that game, but not as much of the positive either. Combat is scaled really weirdly, either going from the hit and dodge repeat loop or realizing immediately that your gear does not do any damage whatsoever and you just get instant killed with no in-between. The material grind feels obnoxiously long to deal with and manage which is something carried over from Valheim which was always my least favorite aspect of that game in particular, if anything it's worse in this LEGO version because the treks to certain caves and biomes get excessively long.

Frankly that world gen is the killing blow for this; after spending an actual 15-20 minutes straight just running in a single direction desperately looking for a desert biome or the ocean for materials I needed for equipment and upgrading the workbench so ridiculously far away from my home village, only to somehow clip through the world forcing me to exit back to lobby and reload the world, I called it quits there. I don't think there's much here that's like outright bad but it's just bleh in a sea of sandbox games just like it. I like the village building aspect and hiring NPCs to do things, but even that aspect needs a lot more meat on its bones for me to come back and really get hooked on it. I might check this out again after it gets some more updates as time goes on, if Epic is as determined to make this a thing as they say they are.

I love the rainy fall vibe of the visuals and people just bustling about in the busy setting of Liberty City and how much the vibe immediately changes the moment you move from Portland Harbor where it moves from sleazy clubs and rundown streets to the noticeably fancier high rises and parks of Staunton Island. Rockstar's humorous cynicism of the modern era already shines brightly through the radio's mixture of tunes (most of which are pretty well picked even before they started getting access to much more well known songs in later games) and the constant ridiculously absurd advertisements playing as you drive through the city.

I just really wish GTA 3 was more fun to actually go back to and play because if you've played any of the games after this one, you're going to be used to so many things that you thought were basic essentials that turn out to be quality of life additions and improvements off the groundwork that this game sets. Two handed weapons force you into tank control aiming in a game where enemies mad dash either away from or towards you before you can even get a proper shot on them, driver AI is utterly batshit insane and not in a fun "look how bad drivers are in New York" kinda way as they make truly insane sharp turns in an instant in lanes that make no sense for them to be doing so, and in missions where you're getting chased can rubberband towards you at speeds that would make older Need for Speed games blush. Cops can be straight up suicidal on two stars being so desperate to ram you off the road that they will run over other pedestrians and even their own forces as you get blamed for it only increasing the insane pressure.

Frankly the biggest killers for why I'm shelving this for now is the combo trio of no mission checkpoints/restarts, no accessible map, and the mission designs themselves. While GTA 3 starts out pretty simple at first and tries to ease you into how the rules of this world work, it all too quickly starts to throw you into the deep end with missions that purposefully do dickish shit to you that you have no way of expecting on a first run which only gets worse by the time you're on Staunton Island when the drives to mission starts and the drives on those missions get increasingly longer. Not having a full clear map also becomes incredibly frustrating in a game that has so many similar looking buildings and roads on first glance. While it's fun to eventually get down these layouts yourself by memory and know what turns you need to make without a GPS telling you (GTA IV and V really spoiled me on this regard and it's neat going back to the 3D trilogy games which didn't have it!), GTA 3 goes a bit too far on this by not giving you any accessible full map that you can just browse and look at to figure out a route to where you need to be. It's especially bad with stuff like Ammu-Nation stores or Pay 'n' Sprays not being marked on the map when you're either in a desperate hurry or just trying to prep before a mission.

While I love the old early PS2 visuals and vibe of the original release (or at least on PC, as close as you can get with a mod setup using SilentPatch, SkyGfx, and Project 2DFX bare minimum to fix massive technical issues and restore missing effects with the bad PC port), I think honestly I'll just wait at some point to grab the Definitive Editions when they're on sale again. While those remasters butcher the art style and color grading pretty severely and have major issues of their own, I think GTA 3 is the one that, gameplay-wise, would benefit more from the GTA V-styled controls and mechanics alongside having an easy mission restart and full map for me.

I did eventually have fun with this when the later season weapons and vehicles started getting added in, but frankly as a whole I'm glad it's over with. If this was as long as a regular season was I would have been a lot more upset but as a one-off single month special I guess it's nice for the incessantly loud crowd of those nostalgic for the original map? The problem is I never had nostalgia for Fortnite back then and while an element of that at the time was because Fortnite was the fun thing to kinda hate on, actually re-experiencing it again with more actual playtime as well as knowing how the modern current version of the game is compared to back then also definitively confirms to me that I wasn't wrong to dislike the game back then.

The OG map is just far too empty and overly spacious with next to nothing to distract or entice you with. The initial two weeks when the game was stuck with the original item spawns also meant that matches would filter out players incredibly quickly not only if you didn't land at a landmark location, but also finding gear and actually surviving that first minute. Being a Zero Build main was thoroughly punished at the start of this season because nothing about the OG map was rebalanced for that particular mode, and while that issue got fixed over time with the addition of later seasonal weapons and the inclusion of more vehicles to get around, the issue for Zero Build was then endgame fights turning into whoever could out-snipe the last players in wide open spaces, or whoever had a vehicle to survive more hits longer. I gave Build mode a try initially just to see how it fared considering the OG map was entirely made around it and while it was kind of fun initially with the people I was matched up with early on, the sweatfest began to show itself pretty quickly afterwards and that was the point I just stopped caring.

I don't care how much that nostalgic group of players seem to keep crying about how things aren't the same as back then and how this was apparently "just the way things should be!", because I stopped finding this season fun very quickly and I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment. If you joined into Fortnite's fray with the more recent seasons and grew used to a gameplay loop that at least gave you multiple goals to go after and a more expansive map that worked for more playstyles, the OG season took away the game you were having fun with for a month. Playercounts were absurdly high at the start of the season but those numbers very quickly dwindled down after the first two weeks, alongside yet another mediocre battle pass and a bafflingly limited item shop that was only fixed towards the end of the season.

I'm not even going to talk about the asinine age restrictions that Epic threw in before very quickly undoing after they realized what a massive shitstorm they were about to unleash when people rightfully called them out on taking away cosmetics that costed real world money to use in a game that might as well be designed around its cosmetics market. Actual brain damage going on over there.

There's very clear design lessons that Epic learned from over the years that the game has been active for and I just thoroughly do not understand what nostalgic fans see in this experience that's so compelling after how many hours of playing the same thing over and over again. I didn't fully hate this season and unlike the last two I did at least complete the pass this time around, but playing the game at this time just kinda felt like mindless brainfood more than usual.

I dunno about this one fam. For every step forward here, there's another step backward, and just enough so that the first game still remains so much tighter and powerful as a cohesive experience.

It reminds me of Raimi's Spider-Man 3; while not as actually extreme as that, a lot of the signs feel dangerously close here in terms of just how much was trying to be crammed into one story here. Kraven feels like filler for what basically should be his game because he lacks any direct emotional connection to Peter and Miles other than being a ridiculously insane threat to the city. The symbiote plot line is so close to reaching the emotional highs of that first game, but it feels like several main missions are missing from the game that would make it click cohesively together as well as Tony Todd's Venom being severely underused. Nearly every single side quest plot line serves to either tease for a sequel or DLC with next to zero payoff for anything you do in this game, and continues to make me more sick and tired of how every Marvel property these days is so laser targeted on creating some kind of expansive universe without actually making a good story that stands on its own first.

New York City has been made bigger, but you end up flying through so much of it so quickly that frankly a lot of it just feels weirdly samey? Admittedly I don't really know how much of this could be solved or how much of the feeling is on me, I've never been to New York and while the attention to detail and scale can be seen if you really slow down and just walk around to take things in, this is also a game that increases the speed of your web swinging and adds a whole other mode of flight through gliding that essentially ensures you rarely ever will give the city that chance. I definitely used fast travel a lot more here compared to the first game and even Miles Morales where I never did.

What doesn't help the city either in this game is that it just feels more lifeless compared to those previous entries? The sense of progression that it went through as you got through that main storyline feels absent here as you end up continually fighting the same dudes from beginning to end. Enemy variety was never the strongest suit of these games, but even the first game made Sable so much more of a threat by increasing their presence and aggression in-game compared to the regular goons you were fighting before their arrival; the most 2 ever does is one single segment towards the end of the game that spams a faction's spawns to ridiculous degrees without actually making them a threat you should be dealing with since they all disappear for post-game.

I also specifically want to know whose fault it was to essentially completely remove the police from the city? Was it an overreaction from Sony or Insomniac? Both? Regardless of who should be blamed, their removal makes solving crimes and the events of the main story all the more ridiculous that the two Spider-Mans are the only ones doing anything to help the city now. 9/11-level disasters are essentially happening every 10 minutes with the absurd shit that happens in this game and out of my entire 32 hour completion playthrough, I only saw a cop car once. They don't even appear for car chases anymore! You knock over some gangster's car and just leave it on the street! Nobody cares and nobody arrives to arrest them! If the concern was because of complaints thrown at the first game for Spider-Man being a cop sympathizer and being okay with city-wide surveillance, frankly not only is that point moot by the end of that game's main story, but it's also made moot by the inclusion of the friendly neighborhood app that Ganke made back in the Miles Morales game that was carried over to this one. The problem was solved! If the concern was because of real life politics, that's a whole other can of worms that you are never going to satisfy anybody with, but from my point of view, this fictional rendition of New York has always aimed to show the city and its people in a positive light, the entire third act of that game was about how that level of extremity doesn't benefit anybody and only hurts them, even the police in that game. A fictional police force that was represented the way they were in those previous games never felt offending, and whatever element there could have been that was close to being so was already fixed by new story elements added from the Miles game and this game.

Combat is just okay. It's more of the same with some steps forward and backward that basically just even out. I don't really have too much to comment on other than believing that the removal of the gadget wheel was a mistake. I don't really care for having such a limited selection of them bound to combinations on the face buttons, and especially with their ammo being tied to random chance drops whenever you knock out enemies, and none of this still solves the combat feeling incredibly easy when the solution to big hordes is spamming every ability and gadget until they slow down. The hordes are more frequent in this game compared to the previous two games and I'm not really the biggest fan of that. The last enemy faction the main story adds are incredibly spongey on health and I don't like that Peter's the only one who is given a mechanic that specifically reduces it, completely ignoring Miles who is still playable at that point and the post-game.

This is the buggiest game Insomniac has released, and is the only game I have played on my PS5 that made my console hard crash not once but twice. That second crash was so bad that it made my system boot to the storage repair screen for a minute. The cube suit glitch is funny, but too many of the other bugs lead to frustration like obnoxious collision glitches, pathfinding that breaks when you try to interact with objects sometimes, an overly aggressive targeting reticle that occasionally will completely ruin a stealth segment you were doing because it launched you somewhere else that you weren't even aiming at, or the camera spinning at lightning speeds during certain animations that drops the framerate to single digits.

Giving this game a score like this feels overly mean and harsh, because I don't think Spider-Man 2 is bad, far from it. But it's a game that desperately needed another few months for bug fixing bare minimum, and frankly another year to extend and smooth out the emotional core of this story. What I loved so much about that first game was not just that it was a Spider-Man story, but it was an incredibly well told one that nailed just the right pacing, just the right number of villains and how they all tied together, and the cast of characters that mixed together so well in a way that I hadn't seen any other adaptation of the character and his world pull off before. While Spider-Man 2 is trying to be a more ambitious game, it also feels like it's a product of executives higher up starting to get their grubby little fingers into it to make something bigger and grander that connects to more properties without fully earning it. There are moments and segments that come so close to reaching those highs of the first game, but there's too many other moments that lost me and felt like new lows that I wasn't wanting. I initially thought back when this game was first shown off that it was going to just simply be fine, a safe sequel that I would still be more than okay with playing because of how much I loved that first game, but I guess I just didn't really realize until now how much fine actually does a disservice in comparison to that first title.

Having games focused around typing has always been a neat weird little concept, but Epistory just lacks a long-staying hook after the first hour or so. Movement and exploration feels half-baked with awkward free movement controls despite having areas built out of tiles and a confusing map that feels needlessly interconnected and large. There's very little variety with combat despite unlocking some form of complexity in the form of different spells you swap between because the only way the game ups the challenge is increasing the enemy count and how fast you have to react to them, which increasingly begins to feel unfair because of words that very regularly repeat themselves across multiple enemies. It's far too easy to end up in bad situations because you think you'll be typing a word for one enemy, only to see something else in the corner of the screen get hit instead or maybe sometimes getting stuck because you hit some other letter and got stuck typing that word with no way to backspace out. I wish I could care for the story but it's so overwritten trying desperately to sound poetic about what depression feels like, and even harder to care for in the moment when you're fighting off enemies or wandering around figuring out where the next thing to type is.

Honestly the biggest problem of them all is Epistory's core focus on typing just doesn't feel as satisfying as other well known titles with its gimmick. Typing of the Dead may be sort of a meme game, but it's still the best in its class because of how it fundamentally makes typing tense and satisfying to nail and get faster at. The loud tactile sound and instant visual feedback makes those games so much stronger as typing games, whereas Epistory has one sound for every time you finish a word and the same enemy fade out for finishing all of them, and one of its core mechanics weirdly even discourages typing fast with the combo meter being timed. Playing too quickly weirdly punishes you more, which should have been a red flag from the get-go.

It's a neat seeing a new attempt at this kind of game and I didn't lose very much considering this was free on the Epic Games Store at one point, but playing it just made me want to go play Typing of the Dead again or even just loading up Monkeytype to see how fast I could slap something out.