Janky, buggy, horrible, infuriating, but (somehow) that's all part of the charm.

I've heard someone call it "the best 3/10 you'll ever play," and that's stuck with me. It's so bad in so many ways, but there's nothing else quite like it. The good outshines the bad, and you're left with a truly unique experience.

That being said, if you hate ARK, I'm not arguing.

Hey, at least it's not Rust, right?

Quake 1 is the SM64 of the FPS genre, the level designers were terrible, but the guys working on the core gameplay loop accidentally created perfection with the perfect stew of talent mixed with creativity. (as well as dumb luck just finding the right shit to stick)

Part of that creativity is people like John Romero and John Carmack.
You take the Carmack away from Romero, you get a game with an idea, but a team that's too slow and uncreative, which is Daikatana.

You take the Romero away from Carmack, and you get a game that's just a scientifically calculated game-shaped grey slop, that's Quake 2.

Yeah, sure, having more standard hitscan weapons, having less frustrating major enemies, having a more grounded style, not having powerups be automatically consumed, having more realistic air control and having easier to find secrets sounds better for the average player... but you're left with a game that's just empty.

The roster of enemies is just dull, the weapon pool is generic, the AI has like 2 modes, either run directly towards you or run in your general direction then hit-scan, and it's just draining, sometimes they shoot a few shots directly in-front of them after dying for some reason?

No idea who thought making the pistol a slow annoying projectile was a good idea, makes the first impressions of the game egregious until you get the shotgun, and then you get to bask in how disgustingly ugly all the weapon models are, just a bunch of AI generated weapon blobs, at the very least they kept the weapons shooting straight.

Remember how Quake's rocket jumping was like, the best thing to ever happen to movement in FPS games? Yeah, you can only do that in straight lines now because your air control is nonexistent.

This game wasn't intended to have, and really does NOT deserve the name of Quake, this feels like a crumby shooter you'd see a large publisher shit out in response to a game as groundbreaking as Quake 1, just go play one of many great Quake mod packs instead of this insult to rocket jumping.

It has been like pulling teeth trying to complete this game for the past 5(?) years. I was a day one purchaser, big fan of Gearbox’s only good franchise, and on paper Borderlands 3 should be great - but Ive been just so impossibly bored. Ive spent a long time wondering why… and I think I figured it out: for a game thats called “Borderlands 3”, it sure doesnt feel like its really about The Borderlands anymore, does it?

Maybe its strayed too far from home. It seems the bigger Gearbox makes the bottle, the more they let the lightning out. As much as I hate Pandoras sometimes monotonous beige desert feel, I think Borderlands used to represent a specific kind of space-western vibe. The harsh trappings of the desperado wasteland, mixed with the exotic qualities of alien wildlife, made into a comically deranged satire of a Mad Maxian society. Without that, what is it a satire of? What satire is happening when you plug the Ice-T teddy bear into the navigation of your colony ship?

The game calls you Vault Hunter alot but did it ever feel like you were hunting or searching for anything? What were you, then?