Disappointment after disappointment, when will I ever grow up? Every damn game I am underwhelmed, yet I seem to never learn. I will never love an entry in this series again, the magic that I experienced from days long past will never be seen or heard from again. Forever I am chained to this merchandise-pushing bulldozer of a franchise. Why does my childhood keep pestering me? Is it a curse? Why do I bother? Just let it die already.

Being someone whose username looks like it's based on Pokemon and formerly having an Eevee PFP for quite a while on here, it would feel like my take on seemingly the most divisive entry in the series yet will come off as something easily discarded. An open world game that is apparently super buggy and super empty? No way I could love it. It's a despicable game that would probably steal my dog's lunch money if it got the opportunity. I can't believe they would release such a broken game in 2022, etc, etc, yadda yadda. Whatever, you heard it all already.

Lend me your ears though... I loved this game.

As I lie here on my bed and rest myself on my Slowpoke pillow, I think to myself "is this a dream?". Not since the early days of playing on my purple Game Boy Color with my copy of Blue version have I felt this same feeling of grand adventure. The ability to go wherever I please without a completely nothing rival constantly challenging me at every other route, or having someone stop me from going down a certain route because they dropped their contact lens. Even the overworld trainers have grown to finally get some manners, and allow me to walk around freely without being demanded to waste my time fighting their crappy low level Scatterbug that wouldn't even give me a single XP point. Finally, a game that eschews all of that so that I may feel free. Free to experience the world of which I seem to never grow out of.

This is MY adventure.

The best part? This game will only get better for me. I played Violet in pretty much the worst way possible, via portable mode on my Switch. I experienced the worst frame rate drops possible, I experienced the worst pop-in, and despite all the doomer talk on Twitter....I never once experienced a crash or even one of the funny glitches or bugs. (may have helped that I bought it digitally) It turns out you can't trust judging your incoming experience based on what you see on the internet, especially when everyone everywhere can easily record stuff that happens to them in what might be the new best-seller in the entire universe. Personally, that stuff actually endears me more to this game. There's a clip of a Jigglypuff that flew off into space out there somewhere that's actually perfectly in-character, and would've made me laugh my ass off if I had experienced it in my own game. To say that I can't wait to replay this later on either a patched version, on better switch hardware or emulator would be an understatement. I cannot imagine how much I would love this once I experience it at a consistent frame rate.

Despite the tacky school uniform you're saddled with at the beginning, I found the setting very charming. Clothing options suffer thanks to it, but these are probably my favorite set of characters since Black/White. Mela having to move her legs like a robot because of her ridiculous boots is more fun and entertaining than anything Leon and his merchandise-moving Charizard did in the last game, and Arven is someone who I want to fight for to the very end. Don't talk to me or my cybernetic lizard motorcycle son again. The last 5% of this game goes beyond words in how much of a step up it is from Sw/Sh's wet fart of a climax.

They say an image speaks louder than words, but here it is.

Call me a fanboy, call me chopped liver. You could even call me late for dinner, but...I enjoyed myself immensely...and that's all that matters in the end.

It's then that I ask myself again, "is this a dream?"

No, the sky has not fallen.....no cats and dogs are not currently living together.... Pokemon Scarvy is my game of the year. This is reality, and I still can't fucking believe it.

Ten.
Years.

Ten whole years since B/W, and they finally do it again... holy shit.

I refuse to grow up.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a unique gem of a point-and-click adventure game. As an adaptation of the short story of the same name it uses the genre’s characteristic features - puzzle solving, slow paced gameplay and rich atmosphere - to tell a psychological horror story where the player must guide five characters through their own personal hell-like scenarios.

What makes it different gameplay-wise from other adventures is the fact that it was meant to be 'unwinnable'. In each character’s chapter you can fail at saving them from their mental torture, indicated by their psychological 'profile picture' on screen. Certain actions might worsen their condition, which makes the omni-present control of the antagonist that more terrifying. (You can re-try each chapter, though, and already completed ones stay that way.)

As someone who loves it when video games use the unique strengths of the medium to tell a story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream does this in a really immersive way that connects the player with the characters to share their horror.

This game is very special to me.

I'd played Starcraft before, but this was the first strategy game I really put a significant amount of time into, and the first game I ever took competitively. I didn't enter tournaments, but with the addition of its ranked ladders, something unheard of at the time, I threw myself into this game and grinded it for literal years.
The game's balance was solid, and the strategies were varied and interesting, especially in 2v2 formats.

That said, it wasn't just a game to be enjoyed competitively. Warcraft III truly was a complete package. The story and campaigns were solid, with top notch cinematics and voice acting for the time.

However all of this pales in comparison to the custom maps. Yes, I know I'm saying basically all of the game didn't stack up to its own custom maps, but honestly that's the truth. As amazing as this game was, the map editing tools the game offered dwarfed it a hundredfold. Blizzard basically gave every player dev tools to create their own games then made a battlenet that facilitated sharing and playing those maps. Any player could create a map, boot up a lobby, and the game would automatically make any player entering that lobby download the map, allowing for quick and easy access to any and all maps that interested you.

These were not basic maps though. The access to game tools allowed players to significantly alter the game, leading to all sorts of custom games, like Vampyre (A more in depth game of mafia), Tower Defenses, RPG campaigns, Angel Arenas, and of course the birth of the entire MOBA genre: Aeons of Strife. You thought I would say DOTA, but it went through several iterations, like Aeons of Strife and Tides of Blood, before finally becoming the DOTA we know and love today and spawning an entire e-sports genre.

And these were just a few of the many, many maps created constantly. There were entire clans dedicated to developing new maps. In fact, I helped develop a Warhammer based MOBA in these custom maps.

To this day, there is nothing to my knowledge that comes even close to what Warcraft 3 Battlenet was. The closest comparison would be if you could boot up Steam and just join any game for free after a 2 minute install. It was a hub for competition for the most battle hardened RTS and MOBA players, as well as the most casual place to try all sorts of crazy game modes and maps. It truly had something for everyone, and was somehow the best possible version of all of it.

|| Mini Review ||

Overwatch 2, to me, was perhaps the first game I was ever hyped for. I remember seeing the trailer for it's release back in high school, and having played countless hours of the first game I was rightfully excited.

Then, years went by. Overwatch 1 was still in and did not have a major hero/map/content update in years. I fell out of playing it and thought to myself "Its alright. They're working on Overwatch 2. Maybe I'll play it when it comes out."

Then it was prereleased, and I didn't really play much of it. I went in earlier this year with a friend and saw all the cool new maps and hero changes, which got my attention. I played it for about a week, then got bored fast. It was still the same old unbalanced Overwatch 1, now with cross play that enabled keyboard toxicity, and a meta that required you to play specific heroes to win (or constantly switch until you find something that works). I've hopped in and played for a few hours with those old friends from high school, but I've never had the drive to go back.

Then I heard the news that PvE was cancelled. This, to me, was the nail in the coffin. This product, which they had been working on for years, making promises about, and completely abandoning Overwatch 1 for, was for nothing. Sure, there's been new content. But that pretty much makes up for the years of the content drought of Overwatch 1. I understand that they are still adding some material. But it feels like it will be no much more than event missions that will become stale quickly.

This descision by Blizzard to have fans pay to get early access to a free game is terrible. The "early release" seems like nothing but a farce to grab battle-pass cash. For these reasons, I vow to never play Overwatch, nor support Activision Blizzard, ever again.

In Jeff we trust.

WHAT A FUCKING JOKE OF A GAME! They delete the first game out of existence, and make a ton of fake promises of a great sequel only to fall short and essentially re-releasing the same exact game just with more heroes and 1 less tank!

They removed Loot Boxes (which I had no problem with to begin with) in place of a shitty overpriced shop where skins and garbage weapon charms, and crappy profile icons for over $20.

They promised and teased a bunch of stuff for Story content which I was genuinely hoping for. Previously story was given once a year during the uprising event for free. Now they backpedaled on this great, free, permanent gamemode full of lore and content for a dry $15 per short story mission with none of the promises they made. Promises like dynamic weather and a very in-depth skill tree like Diablo.

This game is just a cash grab and a sorry excuse for a Sequel. Just play Gundam Evolution. Free to play, has very cool Gundam, not made by Blizzard.