Played using the ecwolf sourceport

So I saw Warhammer 40k: Boltgun and thought "that looks like a lot of fun, but I still haven't played many of the FPS classics, so I'll do that first" So I'm about to play Shadow Warrior then I'm like "man I haven't even played Doom II yet, I should do that first" So I'm about to play Doom II then I'm like "y'know I haven't even played Wolfenstein 3D, let's just go back to the beginning" and alas here we are.

It's gonna be hard to say anything that hasn't been said about this game, so I'm just gonna give my own thoughts, which have probably already been thought by everyone else.

While Wolfenstein 3D technically isn't even CLOSE to being the first FPS game, in my heart it's the first FPS game, Maze War, tank sims, clunky RPGs, all came first, but this was the first game that truly felt like the FPS genre we know today.

It's hard to be critically fair to this game considering I've played through Doom like five times, and Doom does everything this game does 10x better, but I tried my best. Wolfenstein 3D still brings a good amount of fun and excitement today, something about these early shooters are just endlessly satisfying.

Levels are only hallways or slightly open rooms, but maps are MASSIVE sprawling labyrinths that are headache inducing. You WILL get lost, you WILL backtrack, and honestly it is not that fun! Level design is the biggest issue with this game, as it's more frustrating and confusing than it is engaging. Doom later remedied these level design woes so I guess ID learned from their mistakes.

Gun-play is tight enough, fast, and satisfying. It still holds up to this day, even though enemies can shoot you through doors and sometimes through walls, but you can get around it.

I'll briefly touch on the soundtrack, it's honestly pretty weak. There's a couple good songs, with the best being the main menu theme, but the music here just isn't noteworthy. I find myself listening to the Doom soundtrack from time to time, but I have no desire to listen to this one.

The game also suffers from tedium and repetitiveness. This game felt WAY longer than Doom, and I don't know if that's just because you get lost in levels so often or if there really is just that much more content. I personally would've preferred a little less, as you are basically walking down the same exact corridors shooting the same 3-5 enemy types with the same three weapons (only two are viable) and each boss fight is very simple. It gets kinda boring after so many hours, but it really isn't too bad, I just wished they'd switch things up with the level design to make it more interesting, but the level design arguably gets WORSE as the game progresses, with chapter 6, the final chapter, featuring some of the most obnoxious levels.

I want to also say, I think it was a bad decision to have the last 3 missions being prequels. After I killed Hitler, it was hard for me to give a shit about the story anymore, and it just wasn't interesting. Why would you have the ultimate bad guy beaten halfway through your game? Why not save him for the end? (EDIT: I've been informed chapters 4-6 were actually expansion missions as well, my bad!)

Anyways, I'll try to wrap this up.

Wolfenstein 3D unfortunately feels very dated, where games like Doom and Quake feel timeless, but there is still a lot of fun and endless charm here. If you can suck it up and get through some of the quirks of this game, you'll be having a good time blasting Nazis. "The grandfather of the FPS genre" is worth checking out.

Katamari Damacy is perfect, truly the best rolling-type game.

Just the most happiest up-beat vibes and an endlessly addicting game of becoming larger and larger, there is nothing to hate here.

This game has some of the best sound design I've ever heard in a video game, every little noise is just the best.

I don't really know what's going on in the story, but I think the bizzareness of it all is its charm. This game has soul and many creative ideas, a must play for those who like fun.

I think I've played enough of this both in flatscreen and VR to give a fair review. Phasmaphobia is decent fun but features a very repetitive loop.

The atmosphere is top notch, as are the scares (at first anyways) it is very well done and captures that ghost hunting energy perfectly. Whether playing with friends or alone everything clicks pretty immediately. Phasmaphobia is seriously captivating.

These feelings unfortunately go away after enough playtime. After a couple runs, you'll probably never get that same high you got at first. Ghosts will never scare you the same, levels will never give you that anxiety again, and it's kinda a bummer!

The gameplay loop is simply just too repetitive. There is a certain method to play this game and there is no way to create new playstyles, so every run will just be going into the map, testing for things while also running into hiding spots every now and then until you've figured out the ghost, then you leave. Rinse and repeat. Ghosts have different traits sure, but they really lack in uniqueness and none of them stand out, thus again drilling in that repetition.

I've put in about 8 hours, 3 in vr, and I'm just kinda over it? I honestly find it a bit boring now. It's just like inspecting a house and filling out a checklist, which isn't any fun. Bigger maps just kinda drag on and don't solve the repetition problem either, so I don't really know what would fix this game's loop. Maybe a campaign mode? I'm unsure, but for now I just have to write Phasmaphobia off as an incredible first 2-4 hours, and the following hours are as dull as it gets.

Maybe one of the most underrated games ever. This game will never get the respect it deserves, as people either label it as "not as good as the other ones" or "just another shitty AC game," but I played a fairly unique game with clear passion in it.

AC1 is the most unique game I've played in this series, it's parkour is janky yet nuanced, it's combat is simple yet entertaining enough, and it features one of the most engaging stories of the whole series. I will go more in-depth on these three aspects.

the parkour is groundbreaking for 2007 but still in it's baby steps. I frequently found myself stumbling around, climbing where I didn't want to climb, and jumping where I didn't want to jump. It can be very clunky and frustrating, and I never fully got over this. Though I did feel I got better and better at the mechanics, as I could traverse cities faster and faster, and executed certain mechanics with ease, I still found myself messing up purely due to the impreciseness of the system. So, while the parkour isn't perfect, you will be able to manage it and have a good time, honestly, running away from guards by parkouring around rooftops is the most fun I had in the gameplay.

Combat is the other half of this core gameplay, and it's not nearly as fun as parkour, but it serviceable. Throughout the majority of the game, it feels I am encourage to run away and hide in the shadows rather than fight, but towards the end you are forced to do a lot of combat. This combat mostly just boils down to counter killing, as most games from this generation suffer from. On the plus side, the animations are excellent and flashy, and there is surprisingly decent physics that can spice things up. While combat is bare-bones, there is fun to be had.

I've only played about 5 or so games in this franchise, but Altair is easily the best protagonist I've seen. starting off arrogant and reckless, a true loner amongst brothers. We then play with him as he grows into a reserved and enlightened assassin, as he discovers more about the Templar plot and the intricacies within it. Altair offers a flawed view and personality that is also different from the rest of the brotherhood, and that makes him a great protagonist.

This is also one of the games in this series that aren't black and white, which is always welcome. Neither the Templar's or Assassins are truly evil, it's just a battle between chaos and order, freedom and control. The villains are very well written and leave a lasting impression.

Now onto the modern day section, it does it's job. I wish they did more with it, but it seems the modern day just serves as setting the grounds for the rest of the series to follow. We learn basically nothing of Desmond and he gets very little room to show who he is. The doctor and the nurse are also kinda kept back, it felt like they were saving the rest of the modern story for future installments, and didn't have much to do for this game.

OK, so parkour, combat, and story, decent, decent, and excellent, but I haven't even talked about the stealth mechanics! Similarly to the combat, the stealth is very simple. They were somewhat laying the groundwork, and it's valid. I personally have never seen a game before AC1 using social stealth to this extent, so in a way this game pioneered it. hiding among priests, sitting on benches, hay bales, it's all there, but notable features like hiding in crowds or assassinating from above are missing. This is a bit limiting, but it also requires the player to try to use the few tools given more creatively.

The cities in this game are pretty awesome. They have very rich aesthetics and feel historical. NPCs will constantly react to what you're doing and some may even mess with you, making these places feel that much more alive. The scope of these cities, for how dense they are, are very impressive in 2007, though both in actual buildings and content within, there is some copy and paste, something that will stay prevalent in this franchise. NPCs will say the exact same line to you that another said, some NPCs you interact with will have the exact same face as the others, and some buildings are identical to others, which may not be wholly historically inaccurate, but it feels a bit lazy. Despite the copy and paste woes, the game truly shines in these cities, whereas the more open areas suffer from noticeable pop-in, as the draw distance in this game is honestly pathetic. The worst area in this game, the kingdom, shows off all the flaws of the engine, I honestly think they would've been better off with just fast traveling between the cities and not including this kingdom, which basically just serves as a tunnel that connects all the of cities, it is pointless. But I digress, the open world and the cities in this game are very well crafted, as they are smartly laid out for your parkour desires. The cities feel very much alive, which is all I ask out of open world games.

I feel like I've touched up on all the key components of this game, notice I barely even mentioned the side content, as it is all very copy and paste and completely pointless. In my play-through I touched the side content as little as possible, and I don't think I missed out on anything. Pointless collectables and the same tasks over and over, you should not do the side content in this game unless you are a true completionist. I've heard a lot of people say this game is too repetitive, and while that is very much true for the side content, the main game is so short and varying in location I cannot see how this is any more repetitive than other games. Is this game much different from say, Shadows of the Colossus? A game hailed as one of the best games ever? You go and do the exact same thing to targets in that game as you do this one, except in this game there are various locations, more mechanics at play, and an intricate story unfolding. I truly believe this game is over-hated.

I feel like I've made this review way too long but these are just my thoughts. I didn't say much about what actually happens in this game, as I wouldn't want to spoil it, and I'd highly recommend going through it blind, hopefully you will enjoy your time with Altair as much as I did.

If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.

And so, after never getting past that damn mission where you have to go save Cortana when I was a child, I've fully finished Halo 3. No surprise, it's fantastic.

Another strictly campaign review here

Halo 3 does a good job of bringing a modernized Halo 2 to the 7th gen, everything feels renovated though not innovated, which is a tad bit disappointing but it's the finale to a trilogy so what can you expect? I will say I think they should've expanded upon a lot of the ideas they were cooking with in Halo 2, such as the boss fights, those were neat.

weapons such as the pistol, shotgun, and battle rifle feel pretty damn nerfed and not as good as in the previous games, but with new abilities and weapons such as the gravity hammer, it's made up for.

Levels are pretty expertly crafted though some levels play it a bit too safe imo. The campaign is also quite short, so I'm wondering if there was some deadline crunch there honestly. Again I'm not saying these are bad missions some just lack unique ideas. The tank level on the ark is probably my favorite.

I'm a fan of the story and vibes though I would've liked to see a bit more personal story-telling, I think the chief staying a blank-slate works but I think the arbiter should've gotten more lines and just more to do in general, though it is a plus he is now player 2 in coop for immersion, rather than just two chiefs lol.

There's not much else to be said about Halo 3 that hasn't already been said, Halo 1-3 is just untouchable. I would say this is probably the weakest of the trilogy, but that's nothing negative, this is the best trilogy in gaming right here.

I quite enjoyed this one, possibly one my favorite games from this year so far. The game can be viewed as a bit of a walking simulator, and once you accept that you'll enjoy it more. A lot of negative reviews on this seem to want Stray to be a different type of game.

The atmosphere, graphics, lighting, it's insane, just perfect stuff. The game looks beautiful and is quite detailed.

I think the game length being around six hours is good, if it were any longer the mechanics would have overstayed its welcome and gotten dull.

The story, sound, graphics, is all perfect, if I were solely rating on that the game would be a 5/5, but the game play can be a little bare-bones at times. The stealth is as basic as stealth can possibly be, it's pretty brain dead honestly. Even if you get detected you can just run and the enemies can't hit you, they also forget about you almost immediately.

The puzzle solving is pretty good, I think it's complicated enough to make you think and really explore the world you're in, but not hard enough to frustrate you. Generally this is a really easy game but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The movement and platforming reminded me a lot of The Division, where it almost feels like you're on a grid rather than free-balling around an area. You literally cannot fall off or make any mistakes in platforming. This is OK but it just makes things a little dull sometimes.

Also animations can be a little wonky at times but that can add to the charm. Being able to defy physics and spin around uncontrollably is pretty cool, but clipping through items and AI constantly and floating on uneven terrain is a bit too much of an immersion breaker.

Still, you can easily get sucked into the world of Stray, it looks so insanely good and it's world is so impressively detailed. With really great sound design and an awesome soundtrack it is stylistically perfect.

To sum it up, it's a cute little cat game with somewhat basic gameplay but great story and atmosphere. I'd recommend it easily.

This is just some first impressions and thoughts from the playtests, the game isn't even out yet.

Overall, I really love what this game is going for. It's got very fluid and tight gunplay, some of the best destructible environments we've ever seen, a unique enough aesthetic, and pretty good customization.

Some issues though, the game is HORRIBLY optimized. I have a 4080 graphics card and even I stutter about on epic or even high settings, big issue there. Also there seems to be some balancing issues, with weapons such as the flamethrower and some abilities such as the shield wall being way too powerful.

Regardless of these issues, they will likely be tuned out and we've got a great FPS game on our hands. The experience and prestige from former battlefield devs can really be felt in this game, they've really honed in their craft on gun play and destructible environments. I'm very excited for what's in store for this game.

And alas I have finally played Half-Life. I see why it's held in such high regards, but I cannot help but feel this game has become quite overrated.

The first half of this game is really awesome, with excellent level design and pretty fun game play. I believe the soldiers feel too spongy and aren't that fun to fight, but all the other enemies are great, as are the arsenal of guns you have. There are so many segments that have given me some of the most adrenaline I've ever felt playing an FPS game, I was completely immersed into it.

What stops this from being higher than a 3.5 for me is the game is noticeably buggy, and the second half sucks pretty hard. I say this as the game starts to drag out far too much with similar levels after similar levels, then the final 4 chapters switch things up finally BUT they feature flat out annoying game design, it felt like they were just trying to waste my time with slippery platforming and obnoxious enemies. I absolutely hate infinitely respawning enemies, especially in an FPS game. This feeling is all culminated with an insanely lame final boss fight, and a frankly underwhelming outro sequence.

This is still a very good game, my judgement is just really clouded by the crappy finale. I'd still undoubtedly suggest this game, just y'know, be prepared for the long haul at the end.

An age old tale of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

So I'm gonna come clean here, I didn't actually finish this game, despite it being very short. This is because the game is just insanely boring and repetitive and my sole reasoning for playing it is just the story. I was bored out of my mind so I decided to just stop playing about 3/4ths through and just look up the story summary instead.

AC Bloodlines is very admirable in how well it tries to recreate AC1 onto the PSP, but it just takes away any soul or life from it. Climbing is no longer fun because of the shoddy controls/camera, and buildings are WAY less complex and interesting to maneuver. The open world is so barren and empty you'd think it was an abandoned city, Cyprus has no personality or life whatsoever.

This game also has a large focus on combat, the worst aspect of AC1, and manages to make it even worse. Combat in this game is just about one of the most dull things on the PSP. You just attack or counter and viola you get to watch the same kill animation you've already seen 2,000 times. The stealth is also just terribly boring.

The voice acting is decent enough but honestly the story is extremely simple and boring to the point where I just don't really care about it, and this is coming from Altair's #1 fan.

Bloodlines isn't offensively bad by any means but it's just simply obsolete. There is no reason to ever play this, it's just a major downgrade from AC1 and the story isn't interesting enough to justify a play-through, that is all.

If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.

Assassins Creed II deviates so greatly from AC1 but fans lump 1 with the Ezio trilogy, I personally think there is a major shift here with some good changes, and some bad.

Let's start with game play, this is no longer a stealth focused game. I know, this may sound crazy, but this is an action game more than anything else. A huge majority of missions involve big set-pieces and fighting large groups of enemies head on, I'm pretty sure out of all the villains you only stealth kill 2. This was a bummer to me personally as my favorite aspect of 1 was being elusive and disappearing from guards, but here there is almost no reason to as Ezio is literally an un-killable god in combat, and it takes more time to run away than it does to just fight and kill everyone. I'd reckon this is due to guard placements and how they are literally everywhere, it feels sloppy.

Combat is more in-depth than in 1 luckily, but not by much. It is still just mindless button mashing or just waiting for counter, it is simply boring and tedious. This is amplified by how spongy enemies feel, by the end of my play-through my finger actually hurts from having to press the attack button 1 million times on every enemy.

Parkour is pretty much on the same level as 1, with a few moves added. The problem with parkour though, is that cities are laid out in such a way where it is much more difficult to get around. Buildings are much taller, there is much more space between buildings in the streets, and Ezio cannot grab on to A LOT of things that look grabbable. Many times I'd have no way to progress through the city without just having to jump down to the streets then climb back up, which takes a lot of time due to how tall buildings can be.

And on mission objectives, they feel very repetitive at times, idk if it's just because I was getting burnt out or if it really is that repetitive, but doing like 6 fetch quests in a row wears on the soul. I personally found this game WAY more repetitive than 1.

Collectibles are far more aggressive than in 1, as there are like 4 different types, all pretty meaningless and not worth collecting. There is one type, the codex pages, which the player is FORCED to collect all 30, this is not brought to their attention until the end of the game, where they must collect all 30 to actually complete the game. Luckily I had collected 20 already so it wasn't a big deal, but man, pretty lame stuff.

Also, I like the assassin tombs, I thought those were really cool and more of what I'd like to see out of these games.

Now finally onto the story, it's OK! I personally see it as much more of a traditional heroes journey, which is less interesting than 1 in my opinion. Where the story in Altair's game is much larger than him and isn't personal to him, in Ezio's game most of the stuff happening revolves around Ezio. I also prefer the more serious and dark tones of 1 compared to this game. This is just personal preference really. The one thing I will argue is just a flat out downgrade though, is that the villains in this game are just comically evil. While villains in 1 had genuine philosophies and a cause, the villains in this game just want power, which is so boring. Big downgrade there I think.

I've done a lot of complaining, but this is still a good game I'd reckon. The world is beautiful and well crafted, despite the previous paragraph I think the story is entertaining enough, and the novelty of parkouring is still here. I'd suggest giving this game a shot.

Just some final thoughts, I think this game has been widely over-hyped as "the best in the series" from nostalgia or just mis-remembering what this game, or what all old AC games, really are. Combat was never good, stealth was always average at best, and the games always had a level of repetitiveness to them. The Assassins Creed fantasy, sub AC1 or Unity, has always been ignored for bombastic action-heavy titles where good beats bad, everyone's just been tricked into thinking stealth is more focused on because they give us hoods and hidden blades. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I'm just saying, people don't look at these games as what they really are.

If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.

The Ezio trilogy just might be the most overrated trilogy in gaming.

I've finally completed Brotherhood, a game I was kinda dreading to play because just looking at it, it's just more AC2 and AC2 already dragged out reaaaaallly hard, but alas I pushed through it. Luckily for me Brotherhood is much shorter, likely because dev time was extremely short.

So, collectables and 50 million side missions are back, they're mostly all repetitive and boring as hell, so you'd be wise to ignore it all. I actually liked the idea of rebuilding Rome and went through a lot of that, but then I realized I'm doing the exact same thing over and over again and I'm getting extremely fatigued. I did a handful of Leonardo missions which were actually pretty cool, some other side stuff, I built up the brotherhood and got them all to max level, but I really started to get bored of it all, so I decided to just play main story missions to get this over with. This also means I didn't complete the missions to unlock the special armor, nor did I complete the post-launch content, but honestly man it's all so repetitive I don't care.

The story of this game is extremely simple, evil man and his army takes over Rome, destroy him and his army to clear Rome of his rule. That's it. I also HAVE to note that the main bad guy from AC2 does literally nothing the entire story, then towards the finale he is just murdered in a cut-scene by THIS games main villain. The guy that literally ordered Ezio's family to execution gets killed by someone else. Pretty shit writing there. When I inevitably beat this games bad guy, I found it to be pretty unsatisfying. I just don't care about him, he's a generic power-hungry villain with nothing interesting going on, so yeah, story is mid.

Whereas AC2 was filled to the brim with fetch quests, this game has a ton of trailing missions. It's like every other mission you have to trail or follow someone who walks around 20% slower than you, it's just boring. There were some good set-pieces and moments but overall just pretty meh missions overall, they're also all plagued by this "full-sync" system where you have to play a very specific way, and if you mess up the full sync you have to completely restart the mission. Because of this, I tried to ignore the full sync best I could, as there's no way I'm gonna fully replay missions just to get a full sync.

Talking about the map, I actually prefer just having one big map than having 3 or more like in previous games, it made scouting eagle towers feel pointless whereas here, while it was also pretty tedious, it at-least had some merit. I also liked the idea of the Borgia towers which are admittedly just some early "Ubisoft outposts," but once an area is cleared of Borgia control, there was still Borgia patrols everywhere, bit of some ludo-narrative going on there. The map of Rome itself kinda sucks tragically, the city section is un-intuitive as it's just faster to run around on the ground than to hop around on buildings, and the rest of Rome is a barren and empty place. you'll mostly just be riding a horse which is again, boring. I believe parkour has been really downgraded because of the mapping. Rome was a pretty big let-down, AC1 and 2 featured much better cities.

I don't wanna ramble on for too long, so I'm gonna try to conclude my thoughts; Brotherhood is essentially just a standalone expansion pack for AC2, it continues the story in an unfortunately mediocre way, and any new ideas such as the brotherhood are welcome but could've been executed so much better, I reckon if this game had more dev time it would've been a substantial upgrade. I'm surprised so many fans call this trilogy the peak of the series considering AC2 had a lot of flaws and brotherhood hardly innovated. I'm excited to go to Istanbul next though!

Side note: This game did not work for my PC no matter what fixes I did! Would suggest not buying it on PC right now.

If you wanna see my rankings as I go through the series, click here.

Does this game deserve 5 stars? Technically, absolutely not. However, this game just evokes pure fun in me every time I play it and for that it's a personal masterpiece.

The driving? Arcadey-nonstop-nonsense, I love it for all it's worth. Drifting and Ramming is eternally gratifying.
The Fighting? By today's standards basic, but endlessly satisfying featuring a great arsenal of flashy moves and entertaining animations.
The Gunplay? Pretty middling, this is the games weakest point. The camera really seems to struggle here, but popping heads is always fun enough.
The story? A mixed bag indeed, on some fronts it seems forgettable while on others it's got strong characters, mission design, the lot. I personally love the story and the characters within it, but I could see why others don't care.
The World? Full of silly little side-activities that really fill it out, from cock-fighting to going out on dates, this is a legitimately impressive open world for such a small development team. United Fronts brought their version of Hong Kong to life and it's a world that I'll always love being in.

Now, while all you backloggdian high-art types may dismiss this game and point out all of its flaws and ramble on about how in-line it falls with other 7th gen games and open-world games of the same sort, I'm not gonna act like you're wrong, you're probably right, but fun is the absolute most important criteria for me, and I argue this game is borderline constant fun. It's the kind of silly video game fun that reminds me why I love video games in the first place, which is all I ask for.


also please give me a sequel or a spiritual successor please I need it man I need it.

A pretty sweet F-zero type racer that offers some real challenge towards the end.

Obviously it doesn't reach the heights of F-zero, but it's still a great racer. You get that incredible sense of speed while visiting some pretty aesthetically cool Star Wars locations, while unlocking basically every pod racer known to man.

The controls can be sliiightly jank, as it's overly sensitive at times, also the main issue of this game is it's collision detection. Sometimes you will collide with basically nothing, some wonky hitbox, and it'll cost you the race, which can be pretty annoying. It doesn't happen that often but it exists.

There's a lack of pod customization as nothing ever changes visually, and the system to upgrade your pod is just kinda bland honestly. Really the 3.5 is for the blistering fast races. Even the course design isn't anything especially remarkable, this is what seperates F-zero from everyone else.

Still as previously mentioned, this game is FAST, and it's impossible to not find some fun with it. I see why so many people have nostalgia for this one.

(See all my Star Wars Rankings and reviews on my profile here, the list is titled "Star Wars Ranked.")

saying fuck it and giving this a 4.5 now.

I've been playing the play test of this game here and there and now it's finally out. I tell you this is THE PERFECT battlefield game. It's got massive multiplayer maps and player counts, large arsenals of weapons and gadgets, deep customization, SIX classes, vehicles galore, VOIP, solid gun play, clean animations, highly destructible environments, I mean seriously this game HAS IT ALL.

It's literally the perfect battlefield but just with shitty graphics, and that's OK. If you're a fan of multiplayer FPS games like Battlefield, you've gotta to try out this game ASAP.