+the beginning and middle of the plot are by far better than what had come before, even more so than yakuza 0. the game focuses in on parent-child relationships with depressing results, putting kiryu's failures as a father figure into perspective through both the viewer's eyes and his own. rgg studio's skill in characterization has improved so much as they've continued to make games.
+the new combat is polarizing, but I've come to understand it as capturing what old yakuza combat was trying to replicate rather than what it actually felt like. dragon engine combat is extremely fluid and has made choosing the correct combos/finishers for certain situations more intuitive. this was an important feature in previous games as well but never directly mentioned, and here it's specifically mentioned in the tutorial and expanded to include things like high-low mixups. ground takedowns are out, but now you can punch people on the ground directly, which keeps the action flowing, and with carryable weapons removed heat actions can now be used repeatedly with no degredation in damage. top that off with plenty of new and returning abilities (is that tanemura's parry and diving punch finisher?), this is some great, exciting combat that makes the game feel more modern than previous entries.
+dungeon design is the best it's ever been, with each action stage having a gimmick that sets it apart from the others. it's still not anything complex, but it's absolutely better than room after room of enemies. some good ones are the helicopter turret sections towards the end of the game, and the dark mines under the shipyard on the edge of onomichi.
+autosave. oh my fucking god.
+performance-wise i know this was hard to play on old ps4s but on a pro honestly I only caught occasional frame drops. given how gorgeous this game is, I'm totally good with a locked 30fps, though I will say this was on 1080p. this is one of the first games I've tried playing at 4k, and while it seemed to run fine it looked pretty blurry; I would rather have a sharper look with some jaggies in 1080p.
+this isn't necessarily a standout group of substories given the games before it, but it's no slouch at all. most of the substories have a more grounded feel, esp since many of them are done through making friends at new gaudi as well as interacting with the hostesses (admittedly I didn't play any cabaret).
+after so many games reusing the same minigames, yakuza 6 finally recreates a couple from scratch. while I of course love karaoke old and new, you'd have to be willingly ignorant to pretend like old karaoke isn't terrible as a rhythm game... new karaoke fixes that with a proper scrolling field of notes and measure markers. darts also returns, with a much slicker presentation and more legible gameplay that doesn't involve a giant ugly hand in the middle of the screen.
+baseball also returns, tho similar to shinada's side story incarnation in many respects. what really elevates it tho is the fact that a full baseball team management sim has been added, giving this side story levels of content in all but name. actually playing the games mostly just involves sitting and watching a fast-forwarded play-by-play, but it does feel tense when you finally are at bat with bases loaded, and even with no trophy involved I sat through the main missions and filled out the team just because of how cool it is as a concept.
+the actual side story here is clan creator... I was really not looking forward to this after playing kiwami 2 clan creator but much to my surprise this is much more like a reverse tower defense than the RTS-lite kiwami 2 variant. it doesn't really take much strategy but it's not too long thanks to how short the missions were, and the villains have a dope vigilante-esque flair to them.
+the biggest surprise for me was fishing, spearfishing to be precise. this plays like a fully-fledged rail shooter with a high skill ceiling to raise score, different types of guns, treasure chests to shoot open, and a reload mechanic that forces the player to watch their ammo count carefully. the final shark boss is legit difficult and took me about four tries, though if needed you can also grind out levels in the minigame to lengthen your health bar.
+the live chatroom was the only thing I knew about this game for a long time, and god did it deliver. my roommate and I were laughing so hard at this thanks to the unnerving level of detail, from the trappings of the web browser to the hilarious screennames in the chat to kiryu chicken pecking the keyboard with one finger on each hand. it's not really interesting enough to warrant replays to be fair... but that didn't stop me from hopping in anri's chat a couple extra times LOL
+onomichi is so gorgeous... it has so many unique areas and such a cozy layout that it really feels like home, even tho kiryu doesn't get to hang around there for long.
+the baby soothing minigame is perfect, with just the right amount of annoying combined with a tiny little skill curve fitting the bill nicely. best of all: the designers were smart enough to only throw it in once and leave it at that, instead of annoying the player further.
+yakuza games fall back on the usual "run to objective marker to begin combat encounter and/or cutscene" progression insanely often, so the microfilm code puzzle really caught me off-guard. it's nothing too taxing for sure, but a little scavenger quest really goes a long way to spicing the main scenario up, and I'll remember that sequence without a doubt thanks to how unique it was for the series.
+the hunger gauge and the new exp system are some of the best mechanical upgrades to yakuza without a doubt thanks to how they incentivize doing a wide variety of activites as well as making sure to eat on a regular cycle. earlier games couldn't quite integrate these things into the gameplay loop but this system absolutely nailed it. to aid players in grinding, the RIZAP gym is available, and it's pretty nice for a couple of sessions as long as you're rock-solid on your knowledge of kamurocho cuisine.
+returning things I was happy to see: akiyama of course (he looks the most different to me out of all of the returning characters from the y5 engine), saigo and sodachi each as roaming bosses, pocket circuit fighter, florist of sai (as in I was happy not to see convenient plot device on legs trotted out again), morning glory (with new orphan character renders that far exceed the hideous ones from y3), amon, locker keys, health drinks (they're in the pawn shop now!! re: comments on other reviews I've seen claiming they don't exist), the sewers, date (with much more screen time than usual)
+all of the arcade games from yakuza 0 return along with virtua fighter 5 and puyo puyo. I didn't really touch these much from overexposure (I already played vf5 a fair bit right before starting this game when it was rereleased) but it's a great set of games
+new gaudi is a really swell time, with a solid conversation minigame that's easy to understand. it adds a nice set of systems overlayed on top of karaoke, darts, and having a couple drinks, and the associated substories are all fun. multiple bar patrons run shops around town as well!

-the story really falls apart in the last third or so, as the game lapses back into the usual yakuza tropes of trying to sort out the spaghetti of loose ends. the secret of onomichi is really wild but feels like it has little bearing on the actual plot or that it has any weight at all... said secret itself is pretty much filler, as kiryu already has the mystery of haruka's hit-and-run and haruto's father sorted by the two-thirds mark of the game, and once the secret is out the game has nothing left to do except for invent excuses to keep kiryu involved. the tojo clan is also underrepresented while still being present and vaguely involved, and it would've cleaned up the plot a lot to remove them entirely.
-I wasn't really against it earlier when I was actually playing the sections involving them but the jingweon mafia... why even involve them here. they're barely involved in the plot, and joon-gi han is just a worse version of someya.
-let's pour one out for the series staples that didn't make it in: mack and revelations, kamiyama works (since there's no carryable weapons), komaki, the coliseum, ufo catcher, the top portion of kamurocho + the champion district, the individual showcases for every alcoholic beverage featured in the game, a substory finder, multiple colored health bars for each boss
-the main villains are not really all that interesting at the end of the day... the game has great auxillary villains but by the time the end rolled around I didn't feel much excitement at the prospect of beating the final boss up. it's not a complete bullshit thing like in y5 for sure, but they really went with the most boring choice in the who-is-the-actual-mastermind roulette
-there aren't that many random substories out and about overall; it felt like it was a while into the game until I actually started running into them more regularly. I totally get why there's so few, but I would've liked more that aren't tucked away behind the minigames.
-even though haruka is the centerpiece of the plot she does next to nothing. especially after she really blossomed as a charcter in y5 this was disappointing.
-while one-on-one fights feel much more dynamic thanks to the new combat, fighting groups of enemies wildly varies. virtually any random encounter can be taken care of in mere seconds just by grabbing a nearby bike or bench and hitting everyone in range, making regular tactics irrelevant. meanwhile, if there's no large items around or the crowd gets too big, expect to be mashing circle to do a roundhouse throw long past the onset of tedium, or just ping-pong between enemies who can hit you much quicker than you can respond to.

this is a leaner, more modern yakuza game with less content than previous entries but a much higher bar of quality across the board... and honestly I'm down for it. cruising through this one in 30 hours still felt meaty enough to me, and there's still side content left to do when I eventually return for the platinum. the story doesn't quite stick the landing but it nails what a yakuza game should feel like on virtually every other level, and that alone makes this a satisfying play. after the gargantuan yakuza 5 this is the perfect yakuza experience to follow up with, and I feel refreshed to take on judgement before lost judgement arrives just next month.

Ori is a beautiful and brilliant Metroidvania platformer that unfortunately falls short for me in the execution of many of its wonderful ideas.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of great mechanic and level design here. However, I found every so often there would be enemies or encounters that were a bit more frustrating than they should be. The mechanics wouldn't quite work ever time, add in a couple shoddy hitboxes, and it results in a few sections that frustratingly took more tries than they should because I'd be doing the right thing and get screwed by a slip up not my own. Nowhere was this more prevalent than the big setpieces after each "dungeon" so to say.

These were fun at first and brought great spectacle. However, there are no checkpoints at all, and they can get very long. Not to mention the little hiccups, exacerbated by some performance issues on Xbox One X (like really?), and you get sections that ended up dragging on instead of being the bombastic highlights they were meant to be. Side note on the performance, I had to beat the final setpiece a second time because the final cutscene crashed the game. How is this running so poorly on the upgraded Xbox One X?

To be completely fair though, the frustrating parts were in minority to the times I died through my own fault. Ori is a tough little bugger, and my own mistakes earned me the most of my 291 deaths. I enjoyed the challenge really and learned to use the custom checkpoint feature generously.

Add in a gorgeous soundtrack, engaging if simple story, and beautiful artwork, and you get a wonderful little title held back from true greatness by some kinks in the execution. That being said, I'm glad I finally played this as it is a unique little gem. I'm very excited to play the sequel which from what I hear is a pretty great improvement on where they started here.

Talk about a glow up! Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a phenomenal sequel that takes what worked about the first game, irons out most of the kinks, and injects the series with fresh new ideas of its own to create a stellar Metroidvania experience.

Like the first game, Ori 2 is a feast for the eyes and ears, boasting gorgeous art and a beautiful soundtrack. This time though, the gameplay holds up with a completely overhauled combat system and bevy of powers both old and new. This creates a much more enjoyable, and very much still challenging, experience whether you're fighting off the hordes of different enemy types or maneuvering past some tricky platforming sections.

The controls for the most part lock in nicely and a lot of the wonky hitboxes from the first game are gone. There were some finicky moments with targeting for powers like the Tether or Sand Drill, but these were minor annoyances. My biggest complaint really would be the load-in times. Teleporting, pausing, bringing up the map menu would all take a bit longer to pull up than you'd expect. Not to mention in the end game as I was zipping around the map picking up collectables I missed, there were 2 times where I was going so fast the game couldn't load in assets quick enough, and I got stuck in the terrain. This is a pretty rare occurance that really can only happen with a combination of powers you'll have at the end, but it is still a bit baffling. If you're going to give me these powers, make sure your game can handle me using them to their full potential!

These complaints though are nitpicks among a wonderful experience that I loved from start to finish. The story as always is simpler but effectively told with an emotional ending I think will stick with me for a long time.

Even if the first game turned you off, definitely give Ori and the Will of the Wisps a go! It's a fantastic Metroidvania you won't want to miss.

Played it on a RTX 2070, i7-9750H (6 cores, 12 threads), 16 GB RAM, PCIe NVMe SSD at Ultra settings (Medium Texture Pool size) aiming at 120fps often well above it on a 240Hz panel. (Apart from certain animations with the Hell Priest boss with a talking door where the animations were keyframed at 62-63 fps or rather exactly 16.00 ms). I played it till the point where we get the Doomblade on Hurt me plenty. I lost the save and replayed all the way through on I'm too young to die. With centered weapon obviously.

The replay was very necessary and even though I finished with over 31 lives, I think I liked the game better this way. I completely omitted grenades in my first playthrough and no wonder found a hard time defeating most fast moving enemies.

This game is feels less like a sequel and more like a total reinvention like 2016 was. The developers are bolder and taking real risks and messing with the formula (I mean this in a great way).

The weapons are all much better feeling and every little upgrade, Praetor, sentinel crystal, weapon points or the mastery, all make you feel much more like a badass and the game almost starts with you fully formed right out of 2016.

While weapon upgrades isn't DOOM per se, I understand the reasoning to get with the times. At least we still don't have to reload them. While I do prefer certain weapon models of 2016 over eternal, they do fit more with the cartoony weapon models from the original games. Also the decision to not have a starter pistol is very bold. Having said that, I wouldn't mind it as a weapon only to be used when completely out of all ammo. Also BFG feels less strong tin this due to just the way it works and certain enemies being able to circumvent it. the doomblade is fun and was used by me in all my Barron of Hell encounters to the point that I don't really know how long it takes to kill him with the other weapons.

Speaking of which, the combat in this game is phenomenal. The decision to reduce the ammo counts on all weapons and telegraphing all of the combat scenarios still stings but I think works in not just making you feel like a badass but also making you feel like you earned it. Having said that, I do miss having a sense of choice when it came to weapon management and getting to use a favorite gun. The game is also really smart. Me occurring from my first pathetic how important ammo is, I used my praetor points to make barrels regenerate and have them drop ammo. I just created the have right? Wrong! The barrels have a certain amount of fucked after which they don't respawn and they are all but absent after super gore nest only to return prominently in final sin. The combat chess works great. Having said that, remove the Marauder. I had no problem with him on any of the difficulties, having said that, it's really irritating and the game takes a total nose dive and becomes a 1v1 first person fighting game more than a DOOM game. The bosses are fine the Icon of Sin is more than just a wall than the previous games.

Music was fine. A few tracks like the only thing they fear is you and some others stood out but given the behind the scenes stuff with mick and id software, I wonder if there was a version of this game with much better music. As it stands, it's not so bad.

Story wise, it works all right and deepens the doomslayer lore even taking inspiration from his comics. Some day I'll actually read the codex entries and stuff but the thing that concerned me is what the heck happened to the cliffhanger ending of 2016? With Samuel Hayden having the Doomblade? I guess the DLC answers that. A curious decision in an effort to deepen the story is that of 3rd person cutscenes (even showing the Doomslayer's face and voice) with camera cuts and everything. They are short and set the stage for the combat encounters but no thematically rich material for those seeking that (from a doom game for whatever reason).

The maps and level design is great often making you go all over the place, having said that, the secrets are very easy to find even without the suit upgrades that spot it for you and is personally a huge step down for me from 2016.

The engine is the best in the industry and in that regard continues the id tech tradition. It looks great and runs superbly well as well.

But here's where actual criticism begins. I think 2016 looks better. Everything from the guns, the enemies and the atmosphere, putrid vomit looking default UI and everything, this feels not just cartoony but out of place. Everything in 2016 was fit well with the world of that game but it doesn't feel the same for me here and it really took me out a lot. It is a nitpick (hence the still super high rating). Also I miss the cool credits video the last game had but going with members of the staff that actually made the game isn't bad either.

Oh and I really think the rune system is broken. I got 3 of them and never switched out. I got all other runes too but what's the point? I anyway got all 3 slots AND I got to choose which 3 I wanted. I think an easy fix is to either gatekeep then so you need 4 runes for the second slot and all 9 for the third or make the ones you find mandatory ones with no choice as to which you want to pick up. Similar to 2016. Also why the heck is performing glory kills faster an option. Those are the few pockets of time when you have time to think plus those animations are glorious and I revel every non sped up second of them.


The platforming is also super intuitive and works great for an fps

Sentimentos mistos. Superficialmente, é mais polido, variado e com melhor ritmo que o primeiro Halo, mantendo e melhorando seus pontos fortes — personagens carismáticos, direção de arte deslumbrante, gunplay fenomenal, etc. O único "regresso" fica por conta do world design. Combat Evolved dava ao jogador pelo menos um módico de tiquinho de liberdade, com mapas relativamente abertos ligando suas missões. Halo 2 é bem mais linear nesse quesito.

Só um detalhe assim pequeno não faz tanta diferença, certo? Exceto que a fórmula de Halo era coesa e amarradinha o suficiente para que a remoção de qualquer um de seus elementos afeta vários outros. Sem essa módica liberdade de movimentação, o papel e o impacto dos veículos fica completamente reduzido. Eles deixam de ser ferramentas úteis para travessia do terreno e exploração e viram simples armas grandes que você usa em determinados momentos para explodir inimigos. O level design também é afetado um pouco. Eu senti que os níveis estavam um tanto desconectados do mundo, e a arquitetura dos lugares nem sempre faz muito sentido.

Em compensação, Halo 2 é mais "cinemático". Tanto sua estrutura narrativa quanto os setpieces em que você joga evocam e fazem uso explícito de vários tropos de ficção científica e militar, de uma forma bem mais contundente que seu antecessor. Tudo parece mais "épico", digamos assim, o que cria uma campanha singleplayer bem divertida do início ao fim.

No geral é uma experiência melhor que o primeiro Halo, com qualidade consistente do início ao fim, mas ainda acho a primeira metade de Combat Evolved a melhor performance da série. Vejamos o que o resto da franquia me reserva.

First game I played to the Yakuza series - What was I missing for all these years?

Yakuza 0 focuses on two protagonists, Kiryu Kazuma a young Yakuza who when framed for murder has to go on the run from the Yakuza to clear his name and Majima Goro, an ex-Yakuza who is desperate to get back in and will do almost anything to do it. The story is fantastic, I honestly never expected to be enjoying the storyline as much as I am, the characters are really well fleshed out and it's full of tense, exciting and sometimes emotional moments with some nice twists and turns along the way. While the main storyline is pretty serious there are lots of substories to find that are the complete opposite and are completely daft and hilarious. There are about 100 in all to find that vary from helping to train a shy dominatrix to help produce a tv show. While completely optional the substories are some of Yakuza 0's best content and you can get some good in game rewards for completing them.

The gameplay is essentially like a beat-em up/brawler with some role playing game elements. Each character has their own location to explore which shows up as part of a city map, it's not exactly huge and isn't an open world as most western games know it but it is densely packed with things to see and do. As you travel from mission to mission you will often be ambushed by Yakuza, street gangs and various other ruffians sparking a fight, sometimes this can get annoying when you're just trying to travel from place to place though it is possible to run past them. During a fight you can do basic combat moves such as block, dodge, punch, kick, hold, throw etc. but as you hit enemies without taking damage you build up a bar that lets you unlock heat moves which are one off attacks that use that bar. These heat moves can be brutal, you can stomp on peoples faces, slam their heads in car doors, smash pushbikes over them etc. and it is incredibly satisfying at times. There is also a plethora of weapons to find, buy or craft that can be used in a fight like knives, baseball bats, katanas or even some guns. While each weapon has a certain durability they can really make a difference against some of the tougher opponents and bosses.

Kiryu and Majima both have various fighting styles to switch between they unlock as the story goes on. Each style has it's strength and weaknesses, some are fast, some use items, crowd control and special moves etc. so depending on the situation it's worth swapping between them. The styles can also be upgraded using money to unlock more moves, attack power and health with the more advanced moves being far more expensive.

Though money is gained through combat simply from beating up enemies there are a ton of other ways to gain cash in Yakuza 0 and it's where I have spent the bulk of my time so far because this game has a ton of mini games. They range from darts, pool, Karaoke, fishing, casino gambling, baseball batting, Mahjong to weirder activities such as model car racing, disco dancing, and even cabaret club management. Each mini game is surprisingly good, I spent hours learning how to play Mahjong through the game having never played it before, in some arcades there are even full games of some old Sega megadrive games to play such as Outrun, Super Hang On, Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone. The amount of games to play, things to customize and do is really impressive. Yakuza 0 has a wealth of content and all of it is fantastic.....except catfighting, which is all round terrible both as an idea and for the actual gameplay which is both luck based and rigged against you. Seriously it's awful and only stands out more because the others are pretty well done.

Yakuza 0 originally came out in Japan in 2015 as a cross gen Playstation 3 and 4 game so it is never going to blow anyone away visually. Having said that though it does in fact look great. The protagonist character models are especially impressive at times, both the cities look really good with all their neon signs and bustling streets. Where it is slightly let down is that npc (non player character) models are pretty sub par in most cases, they especially stands out in story scenes. There is also some occasional screen tear when sprinting through busy areas of the cities here and there but neither of these really hurt the game from really looking pretty good. The music and voice acting are both of top notch quality to boot. The game is dubbed in Japanese with English subtitles but the voices of all the characters really match their characters perfectly. Not every character is voiced with characters in substories only getting the odd laughter noise or something as interaction but everyone in the main story is fully voiced.

Essentially if you haven't played a Yakuza game before and have been daunted due to the size of the series 0 being a prequel to them all is a perfect place to jump in and is also just a fantastic game in it's own right. It's serious, quirky, funny and brutal and I highly recommend it.

+ Main story is interesting, emotional and full of twists.
+ Substories are many, varied and hilarious.
+ Combat can be pretty brutal.
+ Great value for money with large amount of great minigames.
+ Visuals, music and voice acting are surprisingly good.

- The catfighting mini game is awful.
- Being ambushed a lot when going from place to place can get annoying.

Doom Eternal is the closest thing to perfection you can get from a first person shooter.

With the amount of enemies, the fact you don't get much ammo and the sheer speed of how things went it made for the most engaging shooter I've played in a long time, if not ever. Whether I was shooting demons or looking endlessly for secrets, I was not once bored or out of the experience and I ended up getting all the little toy collectables, the albums, all the upgrades, did all the mission challenges and just overall did everything there was to do, I never do that shit in video games, collecting collectables is the thing that always keeps me far away from even attempting to 100% a game but here I actively looked for all of them.

This game feels like it was made to simply be a lot of fun and every decision made was to keep you engaged with it's combat which is very refined and feels a lot better than in Doom 2016, it's also more brutal, longer, more action packed and lacks the little moments of boredom that 2016 had in it.

I don't mind the addition of cutscenes and making the game...well not more story focused, but just have more story in general, personally thought the story was fine and that's more than I could ask for in a Doom game given that...I couldn't care any less about whatever was going on story wise in Doom 2016 (not necessarily a negative, the Doom Slayer himself didn't seem to care about it either) but here...well I also didn't care much but I was following the plot and not zoning out whenever someone was talking with me. Cutscenes being included also means that there aren't any parts where the game's pace slows the fuck down so that robot guy (forgot his name) can talk to you for 3 minutes in his office.

The multiplayer is cool, it's like reverse Evolve where there's 3 demons vs one Doom Slayer. It's a cool little time killer that I honestly didn't care much for but I enjoyed the little time I played with it and it’s a LOT better than the MP in doom 2016.

I remember when this game dropped, I downloaded it legallyn’t to try it out for an hour or 2 before I bought the game, what happened is that I beat the game and didn't play anything else until I made sure that I had beaten it because it was just that mind blowingly good and addicting.

Now I got the game on steam and replayed it, just as good as the first time, maybe even better. I also got the DLC which I’m looking forward to playing.

My only issue is that the gameplay loop has been so perfected that there really is nowhere to go but down from here if they choose to make another Doom game anytime soon, if it becomes any more complex it'll be too much but if the next one goes for something a little more back to basics it might seem like a downgrade, and if they add nothing then it’ll feel pointless.

But at the same time it says a lot about how much I loved a game if the only negative I have about it is that it’s so good no sequel can even dare to match it.

An amazing experience. The guns, sandbox, environment, level design, characters, music, what's not to love? This game has only 9 levels but still about the same length as Halo 2. Even today, 14 years later, it's an enjoyable experience. The variety of approaches to every given encounter, the vehicles and weapons that are available to you makes this the first game that I've ever played that seamlessly blends together the genres of strategy and shooter. Legendary is the perfect difficulty, only a handful of sniper jackals in the entire game and fighting brutes is a lot less frustrating than fighting elites. Huge maps with the ability to go anywhere. This game improves upon what even Halo 2 has already done, which was expand the lore, the weapon and vehicle sandbox, the controls, the graphics. This game's art style makes it pleasing to look at even today. The music is a mashup of the two previous games' soundtracks and delivered beautifully. That warthog run in the end never gets old.

Back in the day, this was the quintessential system seller. Simply put, the greatest FPS of all time. Beautiful presentation, music, and graphics even by 2021 standards from thick jungle, to desert, to flood infested high charity. The sheer amount of sandbox elements in the campaign and multiplayer makes it timeless. Though the story and dialogue wasn't as good as Halo 2, the gameplay was a great deal more enjoyable. No more lazy enemy spawns like in halo 2, enemies and level design were significantly improved, much more enjoyable vehicular combat. Legendary difficulty isn't unfair, in fact it might be more fun. Loved the new brute weapons, added variety to dual wield [no needlers :( unfortunately], equipment, grenades, and vehicles as well as the two handed weapons. Who could forget the SPLAZER and GIANT F**KING HAMMER. Halo theater and forge were also revolutionary additions. Halo 2 was a bigger leap(it still has the better maps and the better story) but Halo 3 took the Halo formula and perfected it. Competitive Multiplayer and 4 player co-op was smooth as silk. In the campaign, enemies don’t instantly kill you before you see them unlike Halo 2.

Gameplay/Level Design/Sandbox: 4/5. The only two weak levels are Cortana and Crow's nest, they are still fine levels, but the lack of spacing does make them stand out. All 7 of the other levels are great in my opinion, all fun to play in their own way, whether it be using flamethrowers, dual maulers, hijacking a banshee and blowing up a scarab, or simply goofing around with the chopper and beating Tsavo Highway in 5 minutes. There is one large flaw with Halo 3’s campaign and that is the Brutes. Unlike in Halo 2, you won’t be fighting any elites in the whole game. The AI of the Brutes in this game do not fit well with the established lore, hell they are even a retrogression of Halo 2’s Brutes. Brutes are supposed to be intimidating, aggressive, and unpredictable.But Halo 3’s idea of showcasing those aspects is making them a worse version of elites. They stand back, fire from afar and when they go berserk they actually become easier to kill, not harder. Huge flaw that still bugs me to this day. Their armors are weak, their AI is unthreatening even on legendary.

Halo introduced Forge and Theater, two of the most influential modes in gaming history, and I’m not exaggerating. Dual wield makes a return, except for the needler, and with more balancing so the dual wieldable weapons are strong by themselves. And now you have the ability to reload a specific hand. The two handed weapons mixed up the gameplay even more, the maps were still incredible despite some of them being absolutely way too big like SandTrap and Avalanche. Changing bullets from hitscan to projectile based, discourages BR campers, that's why it feels like the BR got nerfed. Halo 3 had all the same modes as Halo 2 but they added infection, grifball, and the limitless potential of forge based maps. The customizability of game modes, the sandbox, and replayability of its campaign are things that not even current FPS games have been able to achieve. The armor pickups work flawlessly. The new weapons, mauler, spiker, spartan laser, grav hamm, these add so much variety and satisfaction to the gameplay. There is literally nothing more satisfying than taking down a wraith, banshee, or hornet with a spartan laser or sending a poor grunt flying with a gravity hammer.

Story/Characters/Game World: 4/5 Clearly a step down from Halo 2 in terms of storytelling. If it wasn’t for the amazing dialogue and a perfect ending, I would say Halo 3 is just a run of the mill action/adventure type story but it has those aforementioned things, the arbiter is less active of a character but he has great moments especially when he completes his arc and gets revenge on the Prophet of Truth. We get to fight in 4 major areas, Earth, High Charity, the Ark, and another Halo ring.

Music and Sound: 5/5, Marty O'Donnell has remade previous iconic Halo songs and created a best of playlist. What can I say? It works great.

Visuals: 4/5 The game still looks nice, the poly count isn’t that low and the textures have aged pretty well for a 15 year old game but the thing that has aged the worst is the facial textures, at times looking like a low budget tell tale game. In desperate need for a remaster for this one reason. Could you imagine Halo 3 with Blur cutscenes? My wallet is ready.

Final Score: 4.5/5. The drawbacks being the visuals and the Brutes. The Brutes by themselves make Halo 3 a slightly worse game then Halo Reach. Halo Reach has much better AI, more game modes, customization, better graphics, better music, better vehicles, a better sandbox, and a slightly more badass story.

I spent a lot of time playing Halo 2 against my will at LAN parties because it was the only game that my friends liked, and I still carry that grudge to its day. Halo 2's campaign is far worse than Halo 1's - it's the kind of experience where you sit down to replay it, and you realize that you only like two of the game's dozen levels - but its multiplayer is definitely an improvement over the constant pistol duels of Halo 1. As I said in my Halo: CE review, the series's formula actively made the FPS genre worse compared to my preferences, so I can't say I like the game that much. That said, you can still definitely have a good time with it with the right group of people.

I struggle to find a way to talk about this game in a way that won't seem like I'm just playing it wrong, because that's what's happening. I'm playing it wrong. However, I think there's a lot of elements of this game that just don't work if you don't play it "correctly", and if you aren't already in the groove, it's nearly impossible to get there.

It took me two attempts to get through the first Dishonored. The first time, I tried to do stealth no-kill because I try to play games the way I myself feel like I'd go about it in real life, morally. This went... awfully. It's hard. Extremely so. I got frustrated, put it down, and didn't come back for years.

The second time, I tried to drop all of that, killing when things went wrong, and enjoyed it a good bit more. I still didn't fully engage with everything the game had to offer, but I felt satisfied with my playthrough. Then the dlc decided to up the difficulty, so I dropped out and didn't play Dishonored 2 until now.

As soon as I started Dishonored 2 (on normal difficulty), I realized that the game immediately decided that I had to have retained everything I learned and that there was no warm-up necessary. It's SO much harder. SO MUCH. So I should just get good, right? Well...

So my problem with Dishonored 2 is that it does not ever give you time to catch up to its skill level before throwing new elements at you... and that's if you even learn how to use the base level gadgets and powers effectively at all. I was constantly dying despite shedding any pretense of full stealth/no kill, and it kept compounding frustration to the point that I always took the easiest route, linking enemies then shooting with sleep darts, followed by crossbow bolts as soon as I ran out of the darts.

That's such a lame way to play, right? I'm very aware. What else was I supposed to do, though? It felt like every attempt at experimentation lead to frustration, so I took the path of least resistance every time. This also had repercussion on non-combat scenarios- why would I spend time reading the extra lore if I felt like I was going to be stuck on the next part for 20 minutes? The game became something that I tried to rush through, and this game is absolutely NOT meant to be played that way.

I blame the game for some of this, but I already know that some of the issues are still on me. I wasn't playing for immersion or just to explore, I was playing because I wanted to experience Dishonored 2, probably in just one playthrough. I'm not the target audience. These games are made for people willing to go through multiple times, just soaking in everything and seeing all the crazy stuff they can pull off. I think there's a world where I could be one of those players MAYBE, but it just felt so overwhelming all of the time.

It's still a good game, though. I can see how a new game+ playthrough could allow crazier combos of powers, I didn't even touch bone charms really outside of applying the ones I found, and there's a lot of paths I didn't even explore. I had some of those crazy revelatory moments that you're supposed to have, such as when I discovered an easy way to take out all the clockwork soldiers in the mansion with just one rewired trap. I just wish I could actually consistently pull off that stuff, instead of panicking as soon as I get caught and killing everyone just so I can get back to the task at hand.

Disclaimer: I've only done one play through of this game so far as Emily. I will do another play through as Corvo and made a part two to this review to see if my opinion changes.

I'm not sure where to begin with Dishonored 2. While I did very much have a ton of fun playing this game, there were quite a number of aspects that I was disappointed with and that's mainly with the story. It wasn't necessarily bad or anything, but it wasn't all that good either.

Now, let's talk about the good story aspects. Firstly, this sort of ties in with the gameplay as well, but choosing to play as either Lord Protector Corvo Attano or his daughter the Empress Emily Kaldwin. This was a great choice narratively. Lots and lots of dialogue and story beats change depending on if you're playing as either Corvo or Emily. There's a lot of detail in that aspect.

There's even more detail and different dialogue if you choose to reject the gifts and powers that the Outsider gives you at the beginning of the game and the continues to affect the story. Again, this ties in with gameplay and story. While I haven't played the no powers mode yet, I certainly plan to.

The changes and differences between Corvo and Emily's story are great and interesting. I also love how they finally gave Corvo a voice actor and he did a great job. Although I didn't play as Corvo, I did hear a fair amount of him and it was great. Side note, his voice actor also does a great job voicing Nick Valentine in Fallout 4.

It was also great seeing a few returning characters, I won't say who, but it's always nice seeing some returning faces. Also, playing as Emily was great. I loved seeing her develop as a person and how she turned from an innocent young girl from the first game to a badass assassin in this game. She's a great protagonist.

Now is where we get into the downsides about the story. I'm going to be vague since this is spoiler free, but I'll still talk about my issues. The story setup, while decent, felt far too abrupt. The villain is also really good, but in order to understand her character and story you have to play Dishonored 1's DLC called The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches. That's not too bad since those DLC are amazing, but it's kind of weird.

I never really felt invested or interested on the main targets in the levels with the exception of two. The story just seems to be filled with exposition from Emily at the beginning of every level and it's not all that engaging.

Now, I'm going to make this part short, but I had quite a number of technical problems when playing this game on PC. While my gaming laptop isn't all that good because it runs a GTX 960m as it was a hand-me-down, it can normally do a good job at running most games. Even modern ones. However, Dishonored 2 absolutely suffered on my PC. This game has terrible optimization and I heard it was really buggy and even more poorly optimized when it released on steam in 2016. It crashed quite a surprising amount of times that it made me wonder if I was actually playing Fallout: New Vegas. I had to play this on medium graphics and my framerate ran between 30-60 FPS. For my next play though, I'm gonna borrow my brother's more powerful PC.

So yeah, story is less than impressive, but how's the rest of the game? Well, it's amazing. The level design is absolutely top notch and is on par with the first Dishonored. There is not a single level in this game I could call bad. Every level has a unique set up, target, enemy placements and are expertly hand crafted to make the most replayable and immersive levels. I want to replay this game.

I want to replay the levels. It has even more replay ability than the first game and that's saying something. I can see myself doing another play through as Emily in the newly added NG+ in high and low chaos. And for my next play through I plan on doing a play through as Corvo in either high or low chaos. There's also the newly added no powers mode where you can reject the Outsider's powers. You can play the game as Corvo or Emily in this mode too in high or low chaos. You can do so many play throughs it's honestly insane.

The gameplay has also seen a major step up from the previous installment. The sword play is a lot more deep and satisfying to pull off with parrying, new clean kill animations, faster swinging and easier handling, and even a focus charge attack that's really fun to use. There's also the plenty of gadgets to use. A gun, crossbow that shoots bolts, sleep darts, incendiary rounds, flashbangs, etc., bombs, stick bombs, stun mines, and a whole lot more. The powers are also extremely fun too. Emily and Corvo have completely different powers. Corvo's I believe are mostly the same from the first game, but Emily has her own move set. It really makes you feel spider-like and very stealthy. They also added an addition to playing non-lethally a lot more fun and accessible. In the first game you could only be non-lethal by being in stealth and chocking enemies unconscious or using sleep darts. However, in Dishonored 2 you can go full on assault mode in an enemies face. You can parry enemies to knock them off balance and then do a non-lethal knock out. You can also do arial drops to knock out enemies instead of them being limited to drop assassinations.

Overall, the gameplay is amazing and is some of the best gameplay I've ever seen in a video game. The levels are also very well hand crafted and amazing which is what I'd expect from Arkane studios. Though it's unfortunate I was very underwhelmed by the story, especially the ending, I can't wait to replay this game as Corvo Attano and give my part 2 for this review. This is most definitely a game I'll be replaying a lot.
8/10

You see the funny thing about this game is that, if you're not a die hard character action game fan, you may think this game is great, maybe a masterpiece for it's story and Kratos relationship with his son.

If you are a character action game fan you most likely think this game is an overrated clunky piece of dogshit video game. With it's new direction being a complete compromise to the series roots.

I'm somewhere in the middle. It looks great and I do like the story, unfortunately I can't exactly say God of War is a fun game. It's got a horrendous camera that feels the need to always be behind Kratos to keep the cutscenes single-shot rule. It never feels like the encounters are designed around the claustrophobic camera. Not that it matters anyways, since the game feels painfully easy, with challenge only coming from tankier health sponges, or in a horrid twist, the need to swap between weapons to take out certain enemies, similar to the awful enemy design in the DmC Reboot.

It's hard to exactly talk about this game without comparing it to other games or even to it's own series, since it both apes on other successful games while also being a soft reboot except also a direct sequel to God of War 3. What baffles me is the fact God of War took on this new direction except it doesn't really do anything new with it. Which is the main problem with God of War. I'm not opposed to a series trying something new, it's when a series does something new by taking ideas from other series and half-assing them is what I'm opposed to. So it turns what should be a great new adventure onto a sea of new ideas into something I've been on before, in better, more focused forms.

The thing is I can't exactly say God of War is a bad game. It's a perfectly fine product with gorgeous visuals and a neat story, but I can never shake the feeling that I've played it before.

Because of that, allow me to list off games that God of War reminded me of that you should check out instead:

Dark Souls
Devil May Cry
God Hand
Kingdom Hearts
The Last of Us
Yakuza
And, get this one:
The God of War Trilogy.