"wait - you haven't played quake?"
~almost everyone who i've gushed about this to game in the past few days

a little about me: i'm partial to industrial grit, my favorite doom games favor grimly edgy atmosphere over 80s thrash worship, i'm a big NIN fan and the downward spiral is one of my top 5 favorite albums. so this should be a no brainer, right?

well - yeah, actually. that's exactly right. throughout my playthrough all i could continually ask myself was, "why the fuck didn't i play this sooner?" and rightfully so. i think the reason quake has eluded me for so long is because its holistic reputation is eclipsed at this point by a diehard multiplayer community that i frankly don't give a shit about. i'm not much of a multiplayer enthusiast for anything - let alone tech-y arena shooters - and honestly i probably would've continued ignoring this absolute fucking masterpiece if not for my pressing curiosity towards trent reznor's involvement

that'd have been a huge mistake; quake is easily the best boomer shooter i've ever played

this is where i could talk about how i adore the weapons and their balancing, the general focus on straightforward maps with powerups everywhere, the difficulty being largely driven by how easy it is to kill yourself in tight spaces - or even the god tier ambient score that has just the right amounts of otherworldly screams and metallic chords strewn about - i COULD go into those things and we could be here for a considerable amount of time - but instead of doing any of that, i'm just going to say that the shambler is one of the greatest enemy designs in any fps. in fact, my feeling towards quake 1 can be summarized roughly with my thoughts on the shambler; he's absolutely perfect. i love this giant, dopey, teethy foreskin man in all his fleshy (not furry - fuck you) glory. and i haven't even begun to MENTION his timbs yet

my mans butters be outright otherworldly

If you love FF16 like me, get this dlc, it's more of what you love. The battle against Leviathan, his powers as well as Ultima's, the music, graphics, exploring the new region, all of that is awesome. One thing I didn't expect to love was Shula. She is so hot, to me at least.

I like how a "balance" patch came with this dlc where they buffed all the shit abilities nobody used. They are certainly stronger, but no one is going to use them considering we have two new eikon abilities to play with. And boy are they strong, overpowered even. Additionally, the meta to destroying bosses is still the same: cycle through your ultimate abilities because they deal the most damage/stagger and slow time so you'll be able to recharge them in no time. Again, no real point in using the newly buffed abilities.

Included in the patch are quality of life changes such as having 5 sets of eikon abilities as well as being able to instantly teleport when you are about to complete a quest. These are certainly nice but why weren't in the game on day one? Weird oversight, I guess.

What sucks? Some of the side quests. To unlock the store, blacksmith and chocobo riding, you need to do a side quest respectively. How do you complete the side quests? Talk to NPCs. That's it. Not even a single enemy to fight. Talk about boring and unnecessary. This was so stupid I have to dock off a point.

Overall, The Rising Tide is a very epic dlc though it sucks that it isn't free. Square Enix has to scramble as much money as they can from this game and FF7 Rebirth's poor sales.

i hate discussing this game with fans because they always move the goal posts. no, this isn't the first time i've played an older 3d game, and no, i don't dislike this game because i can't appreciate them. i greatly enjoy and love games like resident evil, tomb raider, crash bandicoot, and sonic adventure; those were all early 3D offerings that were rough around the edges. they had very thought-out mechanics with intentionality behind their level design and were consistently engaging to play. i cannot say the same about this game. super mario 64 is not fun for me play because i do not find the mechanics or level design engaging. additionally, the camera is atrocious and has aged poorly. there's also this weird pseudo-tank controls aspect that changes how mario moves without warning and killed me several times in the later levels like TTC and RR. movement is actively one of the worst parts of this game, which is the kiss of death for a platformer. i don't dislike this game for being old, i dislike this game for being bad.

i respect what it tries to do, and i think there is some level of admiration game devs of the time express for it that i understand. i get why this was such a groundbreaking game in some ways. but, i grew up in this era, and even as a kid, this game didn't connect with me. finally sitting down and playing it as a fully grown adult, i can understand and verbalize what it is that fucks me off from this. am i impressed with the attempt to focus so much on momentum as a platforming principle? yes. do i think this game hits the mark with that lofty goal? absolutely not. again, it's not that this game is old; i had this same exact feeling when it was still a new game. i do not enjoy super mario 64 not because it is dated, because dated things can still be enjoyed. i do not enjoy super mario 64 because i do not enjoy super mario 64.

1.5/5.0 feels harsh, but it's a combination of not enjoying my time with this game as well as resenting this game's legacy. i don't understand how this is still regularly discussed in contention for greatest game of all time. i hate how it's still seen as hipster and contrarian to say this game isn't the second coming of christ. and, most importantly, i am very tired of this idea that the games that we love cannot have flaws and cannot be criticized.

A must play for people who consider themselves fans of the horror genre, as creative in it’s approach to the gameplay as it is terrifying, its a real test of mettle and how much you can handle, it tosses away conventional regular enemies to instead focus on a posse of stalker enemies who chase you around as you try to desperately advance through various levels, speaking of those, it’s amazing the amount of interesting environment you can pack with such a simple setting, some later levels are just jaw-dropping in terms of atmosphere and detail. It’s a true spiritual successor to RE1, but you’re not playing a person capable of being able to shoot any threat that comes their away, quite the opposite in fact, Fiona can and will succumb to the stress placed upon her by enemies which leads to a variety of panicked states, she only has her wits and some piss poor attacks to maneuver or defend herself, the German Shepard she rescues, Hewie, does the real carrying but even then he can only temporarily stop enemies and not permanently incapacitate them, add to that the fact that the stalkers in this game don’t have a habit of giving up easily on chasing you and you have a great basis for some truly terrifying moment to moment gameplay.

Oh yeah, the story is also interesting and holds it’s own quite well, Fiona might not say much but her expressions show a sea of emotions, seriously the facial animations for the game are pretty fucking good and they add a lot to the cutscenes, one of the most terrific scenes is pretty dependent on em! As for other aspects I really like how an act of unwarranted kindness from Fiona, even in the depths of hell, is what ends up saving her, I think it’s a neat way to shine a light on an aspect of Fiona’s personality.

review in progress, but I vibe with this kinda? Foamstars is a really bizarre game in a lot of ways, and that's most of what makes it so weird is what I like about it? First up, there's this entire map editor for your training area that can only be accessed through interacting with one kinda random element of the lobby. Then there's the incredibly barebones, weirdly slice-of-lifey singleplayer that they spun into a PvE mode with exactly two stages and difficulties with small rogue-lite elements, which is really random but also kinda fun, actually. Also, one collectible is just fake ads the game auto-plays in the lobby consisting of like two still images (that play for up to two minutes). And then there's just the entire aesthetic of the game, which to me looks incredibly trashy in all its over-produced glamor. It's bare-bones and probably quite cheaply made, feeling a little amateurish at times. There's not a lot of content here, but what is there just feels bizarre, like you stumbled upon a closed beta for a five-year old game that's mysteriously still up and running. Which means I'm actually quite suprised that the gameplay is this fun? I like the idea of three-dimensional foam as a twist on the Splatoon-formula, maybe after the "fucking around and finding out"-phase the player base will actually find strategic uses for stacking foam. I dunno, it's just a bizarre game with quite a fun gameplay loop that is definitely going to get shut down within this year, so I'll savour it for as long as I can!

Let’s not pretend as if we can’t put aside shitty story for sick gameplay when RE4 who’s script was written in a matter of weeks is one of the highest rated games on this site. The physics based puzzles shit all over your typical “get object for locked door” survival horror puzzles that are shamelessly spammed all over the place and don’t receive half as much flack, even figuring out fighting the enemies is more puzzle-like as you have to create makeshift weaponry either with actual crafting or grabbing furniture and putting the enemies to sleep with them, it’s all about on the spot improvisation and it’s sick.

I already had a high opinion on the 7th-gen but this game cemented it as one of my favorites, the more I delve into it’s library the more I notice how many elements it shares with the 6th and yet the contrast between their receptions couldn’t be any wider, I am asking this genuinely, where did all the people who enjoyed the 6th-gen go? I feel like if some of the more praised titles from that gen were to release during the 7th they’d face just as harsh of a reception. The most common complaint you hear about the state of gaming now is how everything plays the same and there’s a distinct lack of creativity, well, what the fuck did any of you expect would happen when the moment any game experimented and didn’t go with the design trends of the time, it was met with lackluster reception, one dogged on title after another mixed in with the sharp increase of development costs pretty much killed creativity in this medium for good unless some miracle happens.