I never review DLC, but my god this may be the worst expansion I’ve ever played.

Just awful level design, completely missing the mark of what makes Fallout New Vegas so great. So much boring combat when the gunplay is the worst thing about the game. The story is fine, but the agony that is caused from how unfun it is to play overshadows it greatly. The collar stuff has to be some of the most annoying, frustrating, and pointless nonsense I’ve ever seen. Why make exploration as frustrating as possible? Add the toxic gas stupidity into it and I’ve had enough. There had to be a board meeting where everyone asked, “what’s the worst thing about this game? Let’s make an entire expansion based on it (combat) and make every moment excruciatingly painful and tedious.” What a disaster of an expansion.

Peak video game nostalgia for me. Shoutout to the guy who scammed me out of 2 mill when I was 11.

Kids nowadays will never know the joy of playing RuneScape for hours on end for months at a time. I had very bad internet growing up, so online gaming wasn’t an option for the vast majority of releases. Somehow, my garbage connection was enough to let me enjoy my favorite MMO.

Such a vast area to explore, so many quests, and tons of skills to level up, all in F2P. Membership opened the floodgates of new weapon types, skills, areas, quests, and housing options.

While the gameplay itself wasn’t really thrilling, the constant feeling of progression and improvement kept the dopamine flowing for years. I believe I capped out at a combat level of 75 with hundreds upon hundreds of hours played. I bought houses, conquered hundreds of quests, made friends, worked jobs given to me by real players, and explored the world to my hearts content.

Among the good times, dark times came as well. I was trying to buy a Dwarf Cannon, which to this day I don’t know if it’s good or not. It cost about 2-3 mill at the time, that’s about all I remember. I was at the grand exchange spamming “buying dwarf cannon” for hours. Many players opened a trade with me, realized I had 2 mill, and closed the offer because it wasn’t high enough. Then, one player saw my offer and had me follow him underground, I don’t remember the area. You had to have a candle in your hand that was lit to go to this area. When we got down to the cavern, the player told me to extinguish my flame. When this happened, bugs began to hurt my character for low damage. This wasn’t concerning, until the damage continued to bring my HP to dangerously low levels. The player told me to dig at the walls and maybe I could escape. Despite my frantic efforts to get above ground or save my lowering health, I eventually perished. Upon my resurrection in the graveyard, I realized I lost all my coins. When I went to message this player, they were already offline. It was that moment that I learned I could never trust a soul on this forsaken planet. I was 11 at the time.

Anyway, RuneScape is a fantastic MMO that is very approachable for most ages. The amount of hours I sank into it couldn’t be calculated by most modern computers. I still go back occasionally and play my new character I made a few years ago, who is now a combat level 50 F2P account. Nostalgia doesn’t get any better than RuneScape for me.

While it’s over-hated, it still has some massive issues.

I had a rough relationship with this game for a long time. However, after a replay in 2024, I have a newfound appreciation for this entry in the RE franchise. It really is just more RE1, but not as good.

The coop aspect is the main difference from the rest of the franchise, at least at the time. It must be noted, even though RE5 and 6 did it way later, 0 has the best controls over your partner in single player. I rarely had times where my partner was causing issues for me, where the later entires were destroyed by bad AI. Whoever you’re not playing as has solid AI and can be controlled either by the right analog stick or with status settings in the inventory menu. Having a partner did not make the game worse, if only that could be said for 5 and 6.

While being able to drop items sounds like a great idea, the removal of the item box really sucks. Like really bad. Having to transport your stuff over and over throughout the game as you unlock new areas is very frustrating and tiring. I spent so much time traversing areas solely to keep hauling my items that it wasn’t even funny. I wonder if, during testing, they found item boxes to not work as intended or maybe they followed feedback from people saying they wanted to be able to drop items where ever they wanted. Regardless, this is the worst part of the game. Special shoutout to the hook shot that takes up 2 slots and you have to lug it around throughout most of the game.

Combat is the same as RE1R, so it’s what you would expect from a classic survival horror game. I never really felt like I was going to run out of ammo or ink ribbons, but that may be since I play very cautiously and try to avoid combat and save infrequently. Having a buddy to help you if you get grabbed is fun when it pays off. Weapons feel good to use and this may have the best shotgun in the series.

The story feels like they did their best to justify its existence, but it feels out of place in the series. Like how have we never heard of Dr. Marcus and why have the leeches never come up either? Wesker and Birkin were friends? Why did Rebecca not mention anything of what happened to her to Chris when he gets to the Mansion? Where on Earth is Billy Coen after 0? How did Alpha team not know about the giant explosion at the Training Facility or the Ecliptic Express’ derailment? I know, they wrote this game after the release of RE1 so they couldn’t account for these plot points, but the fact that this story has no repercussions for anything going forward in the series has always stuck out to me as very odd.

RE0 is absolutely worth playing for fans of classic survival horror. It has some quirks, and some baffling design choices, but it really is a great game overall. Not the best in the series by a long shot, but I really underestimated it over the years and I’m glad I came back and gave it another chance.

Name a more hyped release than Halo 3. Then name a game that lived up to the hype like Halo 3.

One of the greatest single player FPS campaigns ever made. All the buildup from Halo 1 and 2 pays off in 3. I’m one of the weirdos who didn’t like Halo 2 very much, but loved Halo 1. Such a tight gameplay loop and it gives you so many new toys to play with in the Halo sandbox. Then, the story payoff at the end is emotional and so satisfying for people who love the series.

Multiplayer in Halo 3 was the place to be in 2007. Some of the best map design around and amazing weapons to play with. The progression was purely cosmetic, yet it kept people playing for years. Compare that to CoD nowadays where they are constantly giving you items to keep you interested, yet people bounce off faster.

Forge and theater were the first of their kinds, and they haven’t been matched in several aspects. The amount of time I spent in both of these as kid, not even playing, was more than I spend in modern shooters now.

Halo 3 wasn’t a game, it was an event. So much love and care went into this, and it shows 17 years later. So many memories were created because of it, and I’d never trade them for anything. There will never be another release this hyped ever again.

VR gaming will never top this.

The most immersive VR experience I’ve ever had. While there are several massive games of this type, Half Life Alyx feels the most like a real AAA experience. The control you have over Alyx is unmatched, creating the most intuitive control scheme VR has ever had. The way it integrates its story into the Half Life universe is so incredibly creative and rewarding to see until the end. Every chapter is memorable, and some are the best levels in a game I’ve ever experienced. Nothing compares to Alyx in the VR world, and it’s one of the best games ever made.