I regret revisiting Monster Hunter: World. I played this a ton when I was younger and loved it. Now, it just doesn't click for me anymore. There are a few issues that I can name off the top of my head like clagger, RNG decorations, terrible narrative, and the godawful multiplayer system. Those issues did detract from my experience but I wouldn't describe those as why i didn't gel well with world again. I don't know, just something feels different.

World is by no means a bad game, and if this is your first Monster Hunter then I think you'll love it as much as young me did. I also appreciate it for getting me into the series as it was my first Monster Hunter. Thanks for the memories and getting me into an amazing series.

I haven't finished Iceborne, maybe I will in the future but not right now because of two words, clutch claw. It genuinely ruins what I believe to be a solid expansion and an overall improvement of base Monster Hunter: World.

So what's so bad about the clutch claw? The clutch claw is a tool that lets you grapple onto a monster. From there you can do a few actions, soften a part of the monster, as well as rotate the monster and slam them into a wall toppling them. I honestly don't have issues with what the clutch claw allows you to do, what I do take issue with is that the clutch claw isn't a supplemental tool like the slinger but a mandatory mechanic. And to pour salt in the wound, it's incredibly finnicky to use. I'll be targeting a monster's head with no obstructions and end up attaching to its thigh while it's kicking and get knocked off. However, none of that stuff really matters when compared to the largest issue, softening.

Softening a part of the monster turns that part into a temporary weak point that'll take more damage and allow skills involving weak points to activate on softened parts. All of that on paper does not bother me, just seems like a way to speed up hunts. WRONG! The health pools of monsters have been massively inflated compared to base game because of softening. The finnicky clutch claw is no longer a supplementary tool but now mandatory if you don't want hunts to drag on.

All of this is such a shame, because the monsters in iceborne are all fun to fight, (outside of clutch claw shenanigans). The story still sucks and cutscenes are still unskippable, but the hunts could've been so fun if not for the clutch claw. The clutch claw even infects the base game. There is a new type of stagger, which the community calls clagger, that monsters can experience. Monsters will sometimes get launched away from you, making you miss parts of your weapon combos. So you gotta clutch claw onto the monster to keep the momentum going. Clagger also affects base game monsters making it really annoying when you locked into a super element discharge, missing, and wasting all of your charged phials; all because the designers desperately want you to use the clutch claw.

Iceborne could've been great, but it just serves how one mechanic can ruin a whole experience. There is still fun to be had here but I'm just sick of the clutch claw to keep going for the time being.

"Mom! Can we get Black Ops III?"
"No, we have Blacks Ops III at home."
Blacks Ops III at home --> Infinite Warfare

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare isn't a terrible game. It really just feels like bargain bin Black Ops III but the campaign doesn't suck. Infinite Warfare is the kid who graduated with all C's, (and one B, being the campaign). They passed, but they weren't remarkable.

The only Call of Duty that I have played that I consider to be genuinely great. It has its issues but it does so much right and it does it damn well. To get the two elephants out of the room, the monetization sucks. It's not the worst that I've ever seen, which says a lot about the industry, but still pretty bad. The other elephant is the campaign, it's very not good. It's stupid and barely makes sense, it is fun on co-op if you have no interest in the narrative. These are two pretty gnarly blemishes on a pretty decent game. However, I do feel the good greatly outweighs the bad in this package.

Multiplayer, at least at the time the game was being actively supported, is really good. Call of Duty introducing a Sci-fi setting and exosuits never bothered me, I'd even go as far as to say that I liked it. When you were tethered to the ground in Call of Duty, most gunfights are pretty straight forward, pull the trigger faster than your opponent. Of course that's an oversimplification but Call of Duty never really had any crazy level of depth or expression. This is remedied in Black Ops III with the exosuit. You can do more than just strafe left and right, there's a whole new dimension added in each gunfight. At the end of the day, it's still just point and shoot but the exosuit allows you to maneuver in a way to trip up opponents that you simply couldn't do before when you were stuck to the ground.

To reiterate, that was a review of the multiplayer back in its heyday on console. I assume the servers are filled with sweats and/or hackers these days. I'm also aware that playing public multiplayer on pc is a genuine risk to your computer and everything on it. Hackers can execute code that gives them access to your computer. If you wanted to play public matches I'd say stick to consoles.

Now onto the best part, Zombies. Zombies is an absolute blast to play with friends. You can feel the passion oozing out of these maps, some of the best in the series, (unfortunately all but one are locked behind DLC). The storyline did get rather convoluted and frankly stupid but honestly who cares. You have to go out of your way to piece together the story, I just enjoy the wacky hijinks that the cast of characters get up to. Some of my best memories as a teen come from attempting high rounds and failing easter eggs. My favorite moment being finally completing Der Eisendrache's easter egg, albeit with abusing a glitch involving the Dead Man Walking Gobblegum.

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is by no means a perfect game but one that does so many things right and created so many good memories that I simply do not feel that its drawbacks hold much weight.

I remebered enjoying this game quite a bit as a teen but I never finished it. So I decided to finish what I started, but I just couldn't get into it. I realized something about the Ubisoft open-world formula and why I just don't tolerate it anymore (most of the time). It really only appeals to two kinds of people.

People with too much free-time. Whether you're simply a kid who only has school to worry about or someone who chooses not to worry, Ubisoft gives you a massive checklist to spend hours finishing. The other kind of person is someone who doesn't have too much free-time and the dollar to playtime ratio trumps all qualities of a game.

If you enjoy Ubisoft open-worlds then more power to you, but I just find them bland and boring. I just don't want to spend dozens of hours on something so creatively bankrupt.

Unrelated, I'm not sure if this has been fixed, but the game doesn't work properly on PS5. It will boot up and run, but the lighting loses its mind. I'm not susceptible to epilepsy but this was genuinely painful on the eyes. If you are susceptible to epilepsy then do your research to find out if this has been fixed or not.

I'm not a big Assassin's Creed guy, I wouldn't say that I hate them but I in no way love them. I see potential, being able to play in a variety of different places throughout history is a pretty cool idea. Origins has the setting of ancient Egypt that I feel isn't explored all too often in games. However, everything besides the setting that makes up this game is so bland and mediocre that I can't be bothered to finish this.

Origins gives you the classic Ubisoft open-world experience. Exploration and discovery, who needs that when anything and everything remotely interesting has a big icon to meander towards. Towers, I love towers! My favorite part of towers is that when they reveal more of the map they then cover it again with more icons. Time to go to one of the several thousand map markers to find a bargain bin Witcher 3 sidequest and get rewarded the same sword I have but the number is bigger and the icon is purple. Riveting stuff...

Origin's isn't a bad game, but a mediocre one; which is arguably worse. If it was bad, I could laugh at it. I wasn't crazy about the old style assassin's creed games but I feel this new style just sucks. It feels like the budget version of better games, so why waste my time with this when I can just play those games instead.

This game isn't bad but it is extremely lazy. It is just a SNES emulator playing Super Mario All-Stars and not even the version with Super Mario World apart of it. The menus aren't even edited to show Wii controls, it still shows SNES controls. The entire package just screams lazy.

Honestly speaking though, I am not really fussed by this game all too much. I just find it fascinating that Nintendo would release a physical game disc with the only thing on it being one SNES ROM. This thing is just a fun little oddity to own. If you want to play Super Mario All-Stars then this does the job. There are better and more convenient ways of playing Super Mario All-Stars, so I don't see why anyone would ever use this as more than just a decoration on the shelf.

Pokémon Sword is like junk food, not good but you keep eating anyway. This is probably the most I have ever played a Pokémon game, I don't know what's wrong with me. It's a bit crusty looking, runs like garbage in big open areas, lazy animations, bad story, and some dumb battle gimmick that hasn't shown up since.

Despite all those problems, I have over 165 hours, completed the pokédex for the first time, and even dabbled with the multiplayer. So it must've done something good, right? I can't really put my finger on it, nothing stands out. I'm not a huge Pokémon person and haven't played many; this one certainly is nowhere near my favorite.

Pokémon Sword is a weird one for me, I in no way recommend it and only consider it mediocre at best. However, I did get some good genuine fun out of it.

I find that the moment to moment gameplay is better than the original, even though this new entry is little more than a big overhaul patch. However, something feels missing, I simply don't care anymore. All the skins I grinded for in OW1, don't care; my competitive rank (as low as it may be), don't care; the story and universe, don't care. I just find myself feeling apathetic and It all feels soulless. Just feels like they're chasing trends; you can definitely see it in the monetization. Oh well, at least I still have fun with friends on it, but I definitely wouldn't touch this on my own.

I didn't realize that this was some meme game when I got it. I believe it mostly falls flat but it does have some good ideas that I wish were expanded upon. There is way too much clutter on screen that it becomes hard to tell what is going on. The gameplay only consists of moving and holding down left click to shoot enemies which can only entertain for so long. Additionally, I would just randomly die for seemingly no reason when I had more than one hit-point, (and one time at full-health). I don't know if that's a bug or if I'm simply missing something, but it's still annoying nonetheless.

There is some good though. The visuals are unique and I enjoyed the PHONK music that blasted constantly. Something cool that happens is that game speed would speed up or slow down depending on what was happening in the song. Usage of that is a little conservative and I wish that they went all out with it. For example, it would've been neat if ther wasn't an attack button and attacking would instead be in sync with the the music.

But I'm just spit balling what could've been, and that doesn't change what we have here. It's just a shallow meme game for dirt cheap on steam in a sea of others.