These are only initial impressions as I did not participate in the beta, but this seems like a somewhat technically and aesthetically better version of CS:GO. That is, it's still a competent competitive game which has mostly shed the silly community-driven soul that was present in 1.6 and Source. Community servers will come up with time, but with the button to access them more hidden then ever, I don't have high hopes for them coming back as a driving force in the identity of this series.

I'll have a more developed opinion of the mechanical changes once someone decides to implement gungame as that's my preferred game mode, but mostly I need to accept that while I can still enjoy Counter-Strike here and there, it's for a different crowd now to which the dry purity of defuse maps is all that really matters. I truly love competitive games and there was a time where I loved competitive Counter-Strike, but I got my fill of that years and years ago and the series has little interest in giving me anything else or letting that competitive game be anything other than the most barebones possible interpretation of the ruleset.

I don't mean to be too negative and I'm sure this is a great entry for someone who still played CSGO till the end and just wanted something a bit fresh with a slightly less depressing color palette. But for me, I'd rather play a game that doesn't patch out any possible method of having fun with the movement.

I think I'm gonna quit ac6 for now. The complete loveless cynicism is just the opposite of what I come to Fromsoft for and the combat feels mostly won on the equipment screen in a way that is fine but just not for me (this may well change as the difficulty increases, I dunno). I won't cross the possibility of revisiting it out of my mind but this just isn't what I want at the moment.

Plus while I like mechs a good amount but I'm much more of a super robot person. The nitty gritty faux-realism here isn't really my vibe, give me robots that can throw galaxies like shuriken over ones for military equipment-obsessed dads any day.

Immaculate 3D platforming with a moveset so nuanced and satisfying that it's only rivaled by Mario 64 and Odyssey. A mysterious world with some of the most attractive low-poly artwork I've seen in a throwback indie. Music that brings out true childlike wonder. Everything in Pseudoregalia comes together so perfectly that it's heartbreaking as you start to recognize the one element so non-functional that it tears everything else down: navigation.

I took 3 times as long as everyone else on this one because it is utterly brutal if you have a poor sense of direction. I entered rooms again and again and there's nothing to stop you or indicate that you've been somewhere before or if you're moving backwards through something. This goes on and on and on and even after cheating and looking up maps online I still ended up having the same problems again and again. Unlocking shortcuts is a punishment as it just adds more paths you might accidentally walk down. I feel so defeated by this aspect of the game, and it's not like I can't handle other metroidvanias that don't have maps when they take care to make the flow of the gameworld direct you around and have numerous landmarks. Beyond the blue ivy which often shows platforms which you can get to, there's very little doing that job. I honestly wanted to cry. If you have a bad sense of direction and/or memory, use a map or wait for one to be patched in like the developer has mentioned they'll do.

I'll probably add another star or so if they add a well-implemented map system or otherwise make finding your way around not a massive chore. There's so much to love here and I truly hope to see this polished into something incredible.

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if this game came out in 1998 Sybil would have more pieces of pornographic art of them on mid 2000s deviantart than there are grains of sand on the earth. All humans alive today would be furries.

Normal ending, and I think I'll be calling it here for now having enjoyed my time. I know there are more involved endings, but after having seen how to exploit the combat system to the point of near invincibility, I have a hard time imagining it'll feel all that different. I'll leave them for if I ever get the urge to replay this.

Apart from the lovely retro appeal (I'll forever stand by late 90s GUIs and their primarily academic research-driven design), I really like this kind of window-based game. It reminds me of being a kid trying to figure Civ 2 and Freeciv out and being perplexed by a video game having more in common with Microsoft Word than Half-Life.

rdein and crew truly have the perfect formula for a lean, gorgeous, and satisfying metroidvania. They're just true masters of gamefeel and tone to the point where I have a hard time imagining them dropping the ball in the future. The only mechanical complaint I have is that the bosses are too straightforward to really stretch your legs with the combat system and feel it at its fullest. I'd like to see the Poeme fight be a model for bosses in any potential followup to this, as it felt the richest and most involved.

This one leans much harder on narrative, and it honestly pulls it off despite being a simplistic tale of religious intolerance. The setting is so well-realized and the insights in dialogue and archives point in so many different directions that it truly feels like just one piece of something massive that I would love to see expanded upon.

Light challenge run: Fist weapons only, no shield, no parry, no spirit or human summons. Fia's ending.

I never found Malenia on my first playthrough, and even with a modest challenge run like this it was rough fighting her for the first time like this. Extremely rewarding though, glad I did this. I thought the giant open world might make replays of this less breezy and fun than other souls games, but you can bounce around speedily enough and skip enough side stuff that you can practically make it as long or short as you want. I fully intend to come back and do more difficult challenge runs in the future.

As mind-meltingly beautiful as ever.

Played with my partner, giving me the best possible chance with this one. Playing games with her is always wonderful and Halo 1 is really special to her, whereas my memories of it basically boil down to some silliness on Blood Gulch.

This lies a bit awkwardly at the midpoint between the Unreals and Half-Lifes of the world and the then-newly solidifying modern shooter conventions, serving as one of the earliest examples of them present in one place. You've got your two equip slots, your obnoxiously self-serious military theming, your narration / guidance from an NPC through ever-present comms, your dedicated vehicle sections, etc. While that is all the case and is most interesting when thinking about Halo's place in history, what makes it truly stand out is its flirtation with the trends of the late 90s / early 00s that aren't so familiar today...namely the hilarious sandboxyness of it all. Everything is a physics object and constantly flying around the screen, with little thought given to how that can break levels (either in ways that benefit or completely fuck over the player), vehicles are so mobile and also floaty that they're constantly flipping over, being boosted into places they're not supposed to, and otherwise being extremely silly.

The best moments in Halo are when you're pushing the limits of that sandbox and being rewarded either with actual progression or with humor. The worst parts are when you're going step-by-step dryly doing whatever the voice in your head tells you to do in that moment. Strange to think that the latter is what stuck and became the default for shooters.