Simultaneously 5 and 0 stars, so I'm cutting it even and saying it's 3.

What do I say about a game I've spent the past 7-ish years playing? There's obviously stuff I love about it. The encounter and sandbox design is superlative - probably the best of any modern FPS - and the way they added ARPG mechanics to guns is far superior to other games like Borderlands or The Division. The story is deeply affective and the lore cosmologically complex, dense with gnostic metaphor. Taken purely on narrative and mechanical merits, it's one of the best games ever made.

However,

It is saddled to quite possibly the most annoying, soul-crushing, insultingly-bad progression model ever. 3/4th's of a year's releases are removed at the end of every year. The first two years are simply not in the game anymore, and if you didn't hit the window for account transfer, you don't even get to keep that progress either. There are multiple friends of mine who refuse to play Destiny 2 because a. Bungie stole their $60 buy-in or b. they don't want to run the FOMO grind treadmill because it's exhausting. Honestly, I can't blame them. I'm only still in this because I've been playing every expansion since Vanilla, have a clan to play with that does Day 1 raiding (where the real meat of the buildcrafting is, imo), and have the armory to support my play. I can afford to take months off of the game and grind everything out at the last week. Other people can't.

Really wish I could recommend this game to people because it has been a deep influence on not just my sensibilities as a designer but also my personal life and the lives of my friends, but I can't. Final Shape will likely be the last time I engage with this game unless some serious changes are made to their monetization model.

It saddens me, but like all MMOs, eventually you have to move on. I just wish it wasn't such an acrimonious split.

One of the worst FPS games of all time. A true downfall to a franchise I grew up with and loved.

When you've played 2016, and think about that game's flaws (which are many, but ultimately do not ruin the game), the design decisions of Doom Eternal come into sharp focus. People favored particular strong weapons for general engagement and never switched in 2016, so all ammo caps have been drastically reduced in Eternal to force switching. Since there's basically no reason to hunt for ammo in a level, all the immersive exploration is gone, replaced by linear Longest Yard jungle gym fights delineated by Mario platformer levels. Since there's minimal ammo sources outside of enemy pinatas, and chainsaw ammo can run out, you regen the last chainsaw pip and fodder enemies infinitely respawn until you finish an arena's major enemies. Since EVEN THEN the optimal strategy is to ice bomb and then hotswap gauss / super shotgun / rocket launcher, certain enemies have lock-and-key mechanics that force you to switch to weapons you otherwise don't bother using.

The combat loop is wound so tight it becomes completely stifling. The game's director calls this "the Fun Zone", but it is anything but. The joy of a good FPS is allowing for player expression through multiple solutions to a combat problem, not forcing you into rote memorization of bad setpieces that feel like a budget character action game.

This isn't even mentioning the marvelfication of Doomguy, who now has a floating fortress, says a joke catchphrase from a comic nobody truly gives a shit about, and is depicted as essentially a "rage elemental". Sure glad we got exposition about how angels and demons are just other sci-fi races or whatever! What a fucking joke.

I hate-beat this game on Nightmare my first time through, and it wasn't particularly hard, with the exception of one specific arena near the beginning of the game before you get most of your arsenal. It was, however, full of unavoidable damage that constantly required glory killing to replenish my health, and the worst game loop of any shooter I've ever played. In other words, BORING.

Truly miserable. Play literally any other Doom instead.

Just two missions into the Allied campaign and a few skirmishes and already I appreciate the map and balance work from Westwood and company so much more. Completely overstuffed and immediately throws you into the deep end where your guts promptly get sucked out through your anus.

Units do too many things at once. Not sure why the art for every vehicle needed to be replaced with greebled versions that make unit readability worse? The tech tree reorg doesn't make much sense. Lots of unit tweaks, particularly to costs, that upend the feel quite a bit. I do like a few of the changes though, like letting defenses gain veterancy and better garrisoning.

I get a distinct sense that this mod is for someone who isn't me; a player who has mastered the APM micro game of every RTS and is looking for the most intense challenge possible. All the grace and texture of RA2 stripped out in favor of poorly-ramped challenge missions.

This one is shelved for now, after one session. Might try again in the future.

I grew up with Command and Conquer, and have extremely formative memories around Red Alert, so this game is obviously my jam.

However, I forgot just how fucking hard Tiberian Dawn is. Seriously! Especially Nod. We're talking a good half of the campaign being no-base missions, and the other half getting your dick ripped apart by waves of units that effortlessly squish your poor rifleman beneath their treads.

Red Alert in comparison feels like a much more mature RTS. Westwood learning the lessons of Tiberian Dawn and applying them to craft a directed, textured campaign experience.

The remaster is mostly wonderful, with many small quality-of-life changes, from right-click commands (BOO!!! HERESY!!!) to a jukebox letting you mix and match the original and remastered albums together (hooray!). The graphics are well-done and faithful, and you can always toggle back to the original sprites if desired. The lack of attack-move will definitely trip some people up, as well as the complexity of the basic micro and pretty bad pathfinding, but in my case I find it charming and a fun skill expression.

All this said, and the reason this remaster isn't five stars, is the AI upscale on the old footage is BAD. Like, seriously bad. The water writhes like worms! They could've just blown it up, kept the aspect ratio, and put a CRT filter to smooth it out, but instead we get some of the ugliest cutscene work ever. Barf.

Definitely worth it. I think these games hold up really well - particularly Red Alert - in a genre now overladen with micro-heavy design where every unit has Special Abilities. But even if they didn't, it's clearly a labor of love by a team of people who adore these games and wanted to make them more accessible to the general public.

I hope someday we get a Tiberian Sun / Red Alert 2 remaster, though they definitely do not need it as much as these games did.

While I didn't like it quite as much as Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge is still a great game and wonderful expansion to a superlative RTS.

I like the new Yuri faction, but the mind control mechanics are both too strong and too weak. Too strong in that you can lose control of a unit in an instant to a Mastermind, Yuri Clone, or tower; too weak in that once you have the hard counters to these things (robotic units, air units, and dogs) then he's got dick all to stop you. Yuri feels underbaked and overgeneralized in this regard, whereas the Soviets and Allies gets lots of interesting and varied units to fill specific gaps in their arsenals.

They try to use the campaign missions to introduce you to the new "national" units - like the Black Eagle - but there's not really much opportunity to use them. Most of the missions are straightforward slugfests where you get a base, he gets a base, and now it's time for mass destruction. Vanilla RA2 struck a better texture with its missions in this regard. Still, this series has come a long way since Tiberian Dawn's soul-crushingly difficult micro-fests, and I still enjoyed the whole campaign, so whatever.

Rest in pieces CyberLenin...

Nioh is now a template to be randomly assigned to franchises and historical eras, like musou. That is what this game taught me.

Runs out of ideas in the middle so every fight turns into 7 big annoying enemies at once, levels are too linear (though I love that they are inspired by various Final Fantasy dungeons, including my favorite Delkfutt Tower), itemization is awkward, and the plot is extremely laughable. But you know what? It's fun, it's easy, it's learnable, and you punch monster make crystal go smash good.

Completed the main story, and enjoyed it, but I don't intend to continue for a while. Too mind-numbing. That this game is 80gb confounds me.

I really love this game. It's one of my favorite interpretations of the Metroid formula (alongside Prey), the production design is inspired, and the combat loop subtle and satisfying.

However, there's arbitrary padding in the form of "alerts", randomized weapon mods, and repeatable missions that end up dragging the experience down, especially when I was going for a 100% clear. Would've much preferred for these things to be discreet powerups you earn through exploration, like missile tanks or whatever, rather than Diablo-esque drops from "powerful enemies".