Of course, if you compare Krunker to something like, say, Call of Duty, obviously it's the weaker game. But considering Krunker is a game that runs solely off of your web browser and doesn't really need any external software installed to be playable, I have to give these developers a lot of credit. I know for a fact that if I was the kid who went to the library to play on the computers that I used to be, I would absolutely jam with this.

As it stands, pretty solid, and I have a massive amount of respect for the developers for making this kind of a game accessible. If you want my honest opinion, I think Phantom Forces is the better web-based shooter, with Arsenal in a close second. But they probably don't want you installing Roblox on those library computers anymore, so this'll do.

Titanfall is a bit of an overshadowed game due to 2 just being considered better in every way, even though I do think Titanfall 1 stands on its own in a lot of ways. Titanfall came out at a very poor time. It was a online only* (It still had offline modes but there was no solo campaign the same as other fps games or titanfall 2) it received pretty lukewarm reception due to the lack of a traditional campaign and lots of server issues. It also was a "launch title" (it came out a few months after but was advertised for it a lot) for the Xbox One which at the time was also very negatively received due to many reasons. Titanfall 1 though also released on the 360 in a very impressive port that largely is just the same game with the obvious frame rate and resolution downgrade.

Now let's get into the actual game. Titanfall 1 immediately strikes me as an extremely aesthetically pleasing game. Unlike its later sequel which chose a more bright colourful pallet, titanfall chooses a much more muted colour pallet with lots of hazy maps filled with industrial and utilitarian architecture. You could easily just say it's a boring brown grey 7th gen shooter but now it's all fancy on a new console generation, but I believe it's artstyle in a lot of ways is BETTER than 2. First off the design of pilots and titans and mechs is much more grounded and makes much more sense to the world that titanfall establishes. The militia and IMC have their own sets of armour for both male and female genders and change based on the type of weapons you're using (assault rifles/lmg, shotgun/smg, snipers/dmrs) which are much more visually interesting and varied compared to 2 which just uses a simple pilot look based on which pilot ability you pick. Titans are customisable rather than being classes and take on a more imposing look rather than the more humanoid look 2 chooses. Titan cockpits have more of a claustrophobic feeling to them and the screens within them look more like screens and less just a big clear planes of glass. Movement is less fluid than 2 which is to be expected but was still very interesting and fun to use.

The campaign of titanfall 1 if you can call it that is more like a series of multiplayer maps just in a chronological order. Which can make actually playing matches a little odd at times since you can be playing at different points in the story timeline. But the multiplayer campaign was a pretty novel concept and was decently interesting. Certain missions were quite cool but I don't wish to spoil them.

I've written quite a lot for a game that I do hold decently close but I don't really feel extremely strongly for it so I'll have to stop myself before I just start saying random stuff. Thanks for reading if you even did. Titanfall even today is still fun to play (if respawn ever fixed it)

I noticed a weird bug where the ball went through the paddles sometimes, the devs really should fix that on the next patch...

There's something so cosmically hilarious in the fact the CEO of Atari saw what would become one of the most influential piece of tech to ever be made as a ''fucking piece of trash'', and the main developer, Allan Alcorn, thought of it just as a side project where he did some things haphazardly to make his bosses weird-ass demands happy. It grounds the legend around Pong while being even more inspiring un a way.

It wasn't the first arcade machine, it wasn't the most creative thing you could do with the tech even back then, but damn if those beeps and boops aren't charming as hell and if playing alone isn't some of the most oddly interesting fun you could have with a game like this, even if sometimes hitting the ball when it respawns is even harder than when another player hits it back...

I could go on about Pong for 4000 words... except actually no, I couldn't; it's Pong, and beyond its unbelievably important historical value and rich history, it's still a game, and even more than half a century later, it still holds up as one.

A legacy that other games from back then and soon after do share, but one still worth praising nonetheless...

As is often the case with very early games in a popular series, I respect GTA III for everything it did for the franchise. It's very clear how and why this game was revolutionary for Rockstar, Grand Theft Auto, and gaming in general. It's also astounding just how much freedom this game gives you to pass missions in any way you want, something that is sorely missing from the heavily scripted nature of Rockstar's later releases. The soundtrack, while understandably barebones in comparison to later GTA games, is still pretty good; I can forgive it entirely just because it includes Paul Engemann's 'Scarface', a fantastic song that fit so perfectly with the tone of this game. Also the voice cast for this game is surprisingly rock solid, the familiar voices of Michael Madsen, Michael Rapaport and Kyle Machlachlan in particular lend so much personality to this instalment.

Unfortunately that's about where it ends for this game, as this experience truly highlights just how spoiled players are these days, considering what GTA III had to work with. The camera is almost impossible to move whilst the player is moving which leads to many frustrating moments of very restricted movement and turning. Aiming and shooting is nigh impossible unless you're practically nose to nose with the subject you're trying to kill. The Wanted system is also bizarre, leaving very little freedom to escape the cops in organic ways, and an over reliance on pay'n'sprays - which by the way, don't even have a marker on the mini map during many missions. So unless you know the map of Liberty City by heart (and why wouldn't you, when playing GTA III for the very first bleeding time) they become impossible to find.

Oh yeah that's another thing, there is literally no pause menu map like in every other Rockstar game; sure there's a pullout map in the physical game box, but have you seen that thing? Not only is it not top down, (like literally every map in existence should be), for some unknown reason, but also it is covered in graphics that just make it all the more confusing for a first time player. I'm not going to study this mess of a physical map just to find a pay'n'spray that should be marked on the in-game mini map.

There is a lot to love and respect about Grand Theft Auto III - unfortunately, when you take all of it's far, far superior younger siblings into account, there are far too many frustrations that come with it. This makes it by default, easily the worst 3D era Grand Theft Auto.

Also fun fact: the cars on this game are made of papier-mâché.

I am getting so sick and tired about talking about this fucking game. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it even after all that I have said about it, but there is something called too much of a good thing, and that is what we got here with Street Fighter II. Capcom was just so determined to make this game better and better and better AND BETTER to where they just kept releasing updates for it, and somehow, nobody back then caught onto how repetitive this was getting. Thankfully though, there is one more update that they had released after Super Street Fighter II, and it would be the last update that the game would ever get… at least, it would be for the next 7 years or so, but we may as well just pretend that this is the last one for now. This final version would be released in 1994, 3 years after the game initially came out, and it would be known as Super Street Fighter II Turbo.

If you all remember the base version of Super Street Fighter II, you would know that, in terms of an update, it added quite a lot of new features to the game, including quite a few new characters to play as, the new moves you can pull off, and the visual overhaul that the game got, making it the best version of the game at that time. As for this update though, it doesn’t really add too much more to the experience as a whole, but what it does add does make it stand out from the rest, and makes it a noteworthy experience. So, I don’t wanna sound like a broken record, but naturally, this would end up being the best version of Street Fighter II that we would have access to at this time, but as an update, it just barely misses the mark of quality that SSFII had. With that being said though, it is still pretty good.

For starters, if you all remember back to SSFII, one of the biggest complaints that that update has was when it reverted the game back to the fighting speed of the original SFII and the Champion Edition. Yes, it still SFII at its core, and it was still fun to play, but people had gotten so used to the increased fighting speed that SFII Turbo gave them, that this change made it seem like a bit of a downgrade. So, not only did we get the Turbo speed back for this game, but we also got so much more. Now, the fighting speed of the game was completely customizable, with four different options available to switch between, allowing the player to be able to set up their optimal SFII experience. It isn’t that much to write home about, but the fact that players are given an option to do this is pretty admirable for the devs to include.

Secondly, of course, we have the updates to the game itself. The intro was changed up to where you could see bits of fights interspersed with Ryu throwing a hadoken at you, which is pretty neat, new animations were made for a lot of the characters, and the HUD for the fights had gotten an updated look. Out of all the changes though, the biggest definitely had to be with the Super Meter, where while fighting, you can build up this meter all the way, and when it was full, you could unleash a devastating combo which could turn the tide of a match in seconds, deciding who the true winner will be. Of course, this wasn’t the first instance of a fighting game having a super meter or super moves of any kind, but naturally, this game would be the one to coin the terms and popularize them in the first place, to where they would be featured in MANY different fighting games all the way to this day. Not to mention, they are incredibly satisfying to pull off, even if I do have trouble getting it to work because I suck.

Disregarding all that though, without a doubt, the biggest change made in the entire game would be with the addition of one final new character, Akuma, and for those of you who have played this version of SFII, then you know that he is the best character in the game. Not only does he have an awesome design, looking incredibly menacing and tough to take on, but he is also extremely powerful, being faster and stronger than every character in the game, to the point where he is banned from being used in official tournaments of the game, which is quite an honor, if you ask me. Unfortunately though, he is a secret character, meaning that in order to actually play as him in this version, you have to input a series of commands at the character select screen before choosing your character… which I never figured out how to properly do, because again, I suck. But hey, even if you can’t play as him, you can fight him for yourself if you reach the final fight of the game without losing a single match, so good luck with that, and have fun getting your ass kicked.

If I were to compare this to the other versions of SFII that we had gotten before this, I would say that this one is probably the second best out of the bunch. Sure, it didn’t off too many new changes to the formula as a whole, and at this point, this game was so over bloated that fans were probably begging for something new to jump into at some point, but it did introduce plenty of changes that would not only become a staple of the Street Fighter series, but also with the fighting genre as a whole once again, such as with the introduction of secret characters. Not to mention, despite being almost 30 years old, this version of Street Fighter II has managed to retain an active competitive scene, with tournaments often being held to this very day. That is pretty damn impressive, and it just goes to show how strong the longevity of this game really is at the end of the day.

Overall, despite not introducing as much content as SSFII, this is still the best version of SFII that had been released at this point in the game’s history, bringing about new changes that would become series staples, as well as still being a blast to play, whether competitively, or even just for having fun with your friends. I would definitely recommend it for those of you who enjoyed the previous versions of the game, or for those who are just fans of fighting games in general, because despite not being the absolute best version of the game we would end up getting, it still manages to hold a legacy that not much else could truly match. But anyways, now that we got this version out of the way, I am happy to say that I am FREE! I no longer have to cover any more versions of this game!........... at least for now anyway, but I don’t care, I will rejoice anyway!

Update #6

The year…is 2012. The London olympics have been hosted, Whitney Houston died, and West Ham beat Blackpool to return to the premier league. But I feel like we are missing something important, a small piece to this very large puzzle. A year ago to this year, Skylanders spyros adventure released. An experimental game to not only attempt to bring back spyro, but to also birth a new gaming trend: toys to life. And so, on 2012, that is when, I finally got my first toys to life game: Skylanders giants. To any onlooker of this series, they would simply assume giants is quite possibly the weakest and most cashgrab entry. But today, I’m here to disprove that, and hopefully give people a taste of what one of my favourite games as a kid was. So without further ado: let us begin.

The story is pretty simple, basically these Skylanders have been brought to earth and forced to just be these figures, which we the ‘portal masters’ have to save by spending actual currency to put them on a FLASHING LIGHTS portal and then they get brought back into the game. Simple right? Well we also have to stop this evil dude called kaos, who is just as evil as me when I leave the toilet seat up. He basically is trying to reawaken the arkeyan robots whom the giants stopped years ago. And that’s it in terms of plot.

Gameplay wise it’s VERY simple. You scan a Skylanders onto the FLASHING LIGHTS portal and then that Skylander is put into the game. You then go through really simple and basic levels. You beat the enemies, do a tiny bit of exploration, and you move on. At certain points you’ll find certain areas that can only be unlocked through having a skylander of a certain type (fire, water, etc) so you know what that means! Spending time! There are also little puzzles and also…the legend that is: skystones. Remember tetra master from final fantasy 9? It’s basically that but better in every way. It is the quintessential card game.

The music is also something I have to stop by and talk about. Lorne Balfe put his heart and soul into this soundtrack. Levels like the junkyard isles and wilikin village give me an instant hit of nostalgia that is unparalleled. The other tracks as well are also quite memorable and honestly he did a really great job of giving the game that cinematic feel to it.

To be perfectly honest, I do kinda miss this franchise. Not to sound like I’m 8 but man collecting the figures was a lot of fun. Fortunately I still have mine and I do look at them from time to time just because I can’t get rid of them. Even if I could I’d only get a penny from them and that’s the unfortunate downside of toys to life as a whole. But that’s a story for another day. Giants would also be the game to bring other competitors in, those being Disney and Warner bros. and oh man, this is gonna get real big and go down very quickly. But until then, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on a classic childhood game of mine. Gone but certainly not forgotten.

…also for those who might ask, my favourite was jet-vac.

Ok story, simple gameplay, brilliant music, skystones is peak, also the drill-x rap lives in my head rent free

"A game for everyone is a game for no one."

To not lose yourself in the evolutionary process and to be true to your concept even after such substantial changes, it is not a small feat to accomplish.

Helldivers 2 competently achieves that, and even if some stuff is (rightfully so) "lost in translation" in the transition from a twin-stick shooter to a third person shooter, it stills lands as a remarkably confident exercise in game design.

The original Helldivers is pure commitment: every single choice in the moment-to-moment gameplay has a weight and a price to take in account for. Shooting requires standing still, reloading removes an entire magazine from your inventory, support takes time to be called in, friendly fire has to be taken in account, camera is shared between the four players, take too much damage and you're out, or on the ground, and so on. It's a constant knowledge check when it comes to enemies, weapon behavior, environments and mission objectives. So, how do you translate such a well-balanced 2D formula in a 3D game?

More commitment. More involvement. Simply put, "more".

Do you want to escape from the enemies? Unlike the original, stamina's so prominent it's almost always shown in your HUD. Almost depleted? Well, it takes time to recharge, and there's no cardio accelerator, or even all-terrain boots. Do you want to refill it, like, now? You can use a stim, but only if you're wounded. Isn't the stim also used for healing, though? Yeah, right.

Do you want to resupply? Unlike the original, the supply call-in is shared between all the players. It fills half of your resources. You have four charges. Are you empty, and in dare need of ammunition? Better tell your comrades.

This whole dance in between being proactive and reactive applies for, I kid you not, every single action in the game. Arrowhead Game Studios has flipped upside down the original game leaving no feature untouched. It's a "systemic" approach on every prop, element and feature, like how certain enemies interact with specific weapons, the physics, the (funny) rag-doll, the butter-smooth movement, and the crispy gun-play. There's literally nothing that gets in the way of fun and challenge, every single thing you see in your screen has a purpose, and the game-play's so unbelievably tight on both pad and mouse and keyboard.

It looks good. It plays good. It feels good. It's frustrating, it's fun, it's challenging, it's non-stop action, it's relentless. This thing can stand proud alongside the likes of Deep Rock Galactic as far as I'm concerned.

I went in with literally zero expectation and I was constantly blown away by how the game slowly and steadily reveals itself to you the deeper you dig in. The comedian tone is even more emphasized than the original, without feeling obnoxious. How did they manage that with what's basically Starship Troopers (derogatory) on steroids, it's beyond me.

If you want to suffer, go alone. If you want to have fun, go with randoms. But if you want a team-building and friendship-ending experience, bring your pals in. I swear, this thing has no right of being that much fun.

Must-play.

So, you’ve come hoping for a really in depth and detailed review? Unfortunately I’ve only ever played this game once and to be honest…it is a much MUCH more interesting story. In the future, I promise I will actually sit down and review this game. But for now: get a drink and a nice snack, sit back, and enjoy my glorious tale.

It was around about 8 years ago I’d say and me and a friend were in a random arcade. We were sort of browsing around, looking through all the different games they had to show. And that’s when…we saw it. Time crisis. For those that don’t know, time crisis is essentially a first person on rails shooter which were pretty popular in the arcades during the late-ish 90’s. The thing is here is that you have a small pedal which if pressed: will allow the player to duck down and reload their weapon. So when me and my friend saw this game, we decided to give it a go. How hard could it possibly be? We said to ourselves.

I’m sure this is the point where in your mind you’ll probably hear thinking ‘oh this is the part where he reveals how hard it actually is and then there is some funny moral to the story later’. Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to crush those expectations.

So my friend inserted 50p of British currency into the machine and started playing. We’d both agreed that he’d have the first go and later I’d have a go after he died. But after 10 minutes or so, we realised that he was better at time crisis than we thought. He was brilliant at it in fact. I just sat there watching him. He decimated every single enemy in his path. The villain laughed: thinking that he was some sort of joke. But, he was so, so wrong. My friend kept pushing the pedal like there was no tomorrow and landing every hit. After a while, I began to wonder if the machine was rigged. But those thoughts were soon put to sleep as finally: he beat the game.

So what is the moral to the story then? Just because you think a game is gonna be really hard doesn’t mean it always will.

Great gameplay, story happened, pedal was harmed, ACTION! RELOAD!

The majority of the past few games developed by RGG Studios have mostly been a transition for the world of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise. Kazuma Kiryu, who had been the series’ extremely popular main protagonist for nearly a decade, was essentially retired from starring in the mainline games in 2016’s Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, after being featured as the lead or co-lead in numerous entries of the series. The mainline games then shifted genres entirely with 2020’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon, going from a 3D beat-’em-up to a turn-based RPG, while the beat-’em-up gameplay was delegated to the new detective-themed Judgment spin-off series. These games each featured fantastic new protagonists with their own charming supporting casts. It felt like RGG Studios was testing the waters with these new characters and approaches to gameplay, and since the Judgment games and Yakuza: Like a Dragon went on to be successful despite not starring Kiryu, it was time to officially pass on the torch to the new generation. RGG Studios does just that with Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. It’s a seminal entry for the series that eclipses just about everything that came before it in scope.

The franchise has always been defined by its large and elaborate overworlds that are filled with stunning amounts of content to discover, including substories, mini games, mini bosses, and an assortment of other fun challenges and things to do. Infinite Wealth somehow manages to take that standard to the next level. The game primarily takes place in Honolulu, Hawaii, one of the largest overworlds the series has ever seen, in addition to including the cities of Ijincho and Kamurocho from the previous games. Each of these locations has an abundance of things to do, to the point where it’s honestly a little bit overwhelming. The first half of the game in particular has several back-to-back tutorials regarding how its systems and side content works and it can be a bit difficult keeping track of it all. This is a very enormous and lengthy game though, and as long as you give yourself time and breathing room, you’ll eventually get used to… most of it.

The turn-based combat is heavily improved from the previous game, with a ton of quality of life changes. A new and vital element of combat is that you now have a limited range you can move your characters in. This allows you to position your characters in order to make the most effective use of their special attacks, adding a whole extra layer of depth to the combat. Drink Links and Bonds, which are conversations that you can have with your allies that lets you get to know them better, are a lot more important in this game. Completing them unlocks additional combo attacks, which you can perform by knocking enemies into your allies, as well as chain attacks, where your allies will perform automatic follow-up attacks after landing one of your own. I can’t stress enough how much I love these. It is indescribably satisfying having all of these different methods of attacking an enemy come together all at once. Even if your party is outnumbered, it feels like you constantly have the jump on every enemy you come across.

Despite all of the quality of life changes to combat, there is one element of it that I found to be lacking. Perfect Guards return from the previous game, where timing a button press to the enemy’s attack allows you to mitigate some damage. It has been some time since I last played Yakuza 7, so I can’t trust my memory on this, but it feels like pulling off perfect guards in Infinite Wealth is a lot harder than the previous game. The timing of the button press won’t always align with the enemy’s attack and it can be difficult determining when you’re actually supposed to press the button. In addition to that, the camera won’t always shift to the character that’s getting attacked in time for you to see the enemy’s attack itself, so you’ll have to guess when you’re supposed to press the button. This is especially frequent with attacks where the enemy will quickly bounce from ally to ally, though thankfully, there aren’t very many enemies in the game that do this, it’s mostly reserved for boss fights.

In addition to the combat, there are a bunch of other quality of life changes that I really want to highlight. The job system has been changed so that you can choose any skill from any job and assign them to a character, which allows for an insane level of character customization. Enemies spotting you in the overworld doesn’t immediately start a battle. Now a battle will only start if you remain in their field of vision for a certain amount of time, or if you just run up to them. You can also immediately take out lower level enemies with the Smackdown option, which allows you to instantly win the fight and can help save time. These are all godsend changes that I’m so thankful for.

I didn’t engage with all of the side content because there is just so much of it, but I did want to highlight Dondoko Island. This is the equivalent to the Ichiban Holdings mini game from 7. This single mini game honestly feels like a fully-fledged spin-off title in its own right. It takes extremely obvious inspiration from Animal Crossing: New Horizons where you’re customizing your own island resort by breaking trees and rocks, collecting materials, and placing all sorts of different furnishings and attractions all over the island. You can invite several guests to experience your island where they’ll spend Dondoko Bucks, a currency which can be converted into actual money. While you won’t break the economy to the same extent that you could in Yakuza 7, you get pretty damn close, and it’s a side activity that’s not only very worthwhile, but also engaging and genuinely relaxing.

Infinite Wealth’s story left me with a lot of mixed, but mostly positive feelings. I wasn’t as moved emotionally by this game as I was with Yakuza 7, which by the end had me in tears. Despite that, I still think the story is really good overall. It handles both Ichiban and Kiryu’s stories extremely well. Ichiban’s importance to the story isn’t diminished or overshadowed by Kiryu, which was a worry of mine going into this game. A major plot point is that Kiryu is suffering from cancer and doesn’t have much longer to live. One of Kiryu’s biggest flaws as a character is that he is always undertaking the brunt of burdens unto himself, rarely letting people in and sharing his own personal struggles with others. While he did originally meet Ichiban in Yakuza 7, which left a huge impression on him, it isn’t until here in Infinite Wealth where he finally starts sharing the burden with not just Ichiban, but the rest of the playable cast as well. It’s not just fantastic character development, but it really feels like a passing of the torch between these characters. The biggest downside to the story I feel is that it doesn’t do the best job at balancing the party members and the roles they play in the game. A few characters like Zhao and Joon Gi Han feel like they’re kind of just along for the ride. You still get to spend time with them with the Drink Links and Bond system though, so it’s not the biggest deal.

The game celebrates Kiryu as well as the franchise’s legacy with side content exclusive to him. I don’t want to give too much of this away, but if you’re a fan of the series, then this side content should be considered essential. It’s not just a trip down memory lane, but a way of tying up some loose ends of the series as well. Still, I really want to talk about it as well as the ending to the game, so I’ve made a spoiler Pastebin where I discuss them.

I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the game with this review. Infinite Wealth is really the perfect title for this game, as it really does feel like it provides an endless treasure trove of sheer enjoyment. Time just stopped existing for me when I played it. I was locked in, having way too much fun and I couldn’t put it down. It’s a wonderful celebration of not just the series’ past, but its future as well. It’s truly incredible, and I genuinely cannot fathom how RGG Studios could possibly make a game that’s bigger and richer than this. It is overwhelmingly phenomenal.