Finally hit my 2.0 k/d for MP, took a hot minute cause it plummeted immensely when camo-grinding as well as deliberately reverse-boosting just to see how bad it could possibly get at low-elo (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyftel9rSNM )

The MP this year is made for the sweatiest of tryhards (i.e. people who spend time in-between games optimizing the shit out of a loadout to create something absolutely bullshit to play against)
This means if you also like to take the game little too seriously, be prepared to play against iron sight/1x sight "quickscopers" as well as people who abuse the hell out of peeker's advantage who will laser you in sub-300ms.
That's not to say that these are the only types of players you'll come across but if you strive to be decent at this game, there is a lot of corny behavior you will come across.

Netcode being mediocre and SBMM being strict are still the same old, it is what it is.

Generally, I like it. The MP is made pretty reactionary to MWII's where the meta there was to either camp or dropshot every kill. I enjoy what SHG's doing with the MP aside from making snipers OP as shit.

A game based on the short story by Harlan Ellison sees a group of five people trapped inside some sort of digital hellscape. They have been there for over 100 years and want to escape; however, the all-powerful and overseeing AI called AM is trying to stop them. The short tales of these five individuals, with almost no backstory, thrust us directly into their lives. We don't understand their motivations for being here, and we barely get to know who or what AM is. I Have No Mouth is another adventure title from Cyberdreams that focuses more on the atmosphere, art, and voice acting than on gameplay.

I Have No Mouth is jam-packed with puzzles, items for your inventory, and a variety of ways to utilize them. I recommend following a guide to a T to get an idea of how the game plays out first, but even with the guide, I was confused and lost. Each scenario has multiple endings, and getting the totem at the end of each scenario requires a perfect playthrough. These roadblocks will either just end the scenario, resulting in that character not being able to act in the final scene, or end the entire game. This will necessitate constant trial and error and backtracking, which can be incredibly frustrating. Who would want to do this? This open-endedness is the wrong way to get different endings.

Even within each scenario, combining objects and using them in the correct order is mostly impossible without a guide. Unless you spend dozens of hours trying things in different ways, you will never get far. Some puzzles are extremely obtuse, and even with a guide, I constantly reminded myself that I would never have guessed to solve them. Using certain objects in a particular manner simply doesn't make sense. You can't use a cloth as a blindfold to bypass a specific character. How would I have known that? Adventure games from the early to mid-1990s faced numerous issues, which are evident in I Have No Mouth.

If you do use a guide, the scenarios are quite interesting and play a part in the morality and perspective of both good and bad people. The artwork and music are amazing, with a lot of detail put into the atmosphere. Each scenario looks and feels different, but I wanted to know more about AM and why these characters are here. There's not much of an explanation for any of this. Each scenario is also very short. You can complete the entire game with a guide in less than 2 hours. I also feel that for the amount of trial and error the game has, there are too many actions you can use. Swallow, give, take, push, use, talk to, walk to—it's just way too much. It becomes tedious to use nearly every command on each object. It's simply not fun at all.

Overall, I Have No Mouth is an interesting spin on moral choices, but there's no overarching story here to keep you wanting more. The characters also have no backstory, and I wanted to know more about AM and what this hellscape is all about. The game has way too many actions, trial-and-error roadblock endings, and just a bad case of 90's adventure qualms. I Have No Mouth is largely overrated as a game, and there are other adventure titles that offer more striking visuals. If you need to use a guide just to finish the game, then you know there's a problem. Good voice acting and music aside, there's just too much that will make a player quit early on.

Me starting the Submarine level: HAHA YEAH FINALLY THESE TURRETS TURN ALL THE WAY AROUND THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME

Me during the Submarine level: Dizzy's narration makes this feel like a Disneyland ride! Also, I have no sense of direction anymore, which way is up?? Gettin a lil queasy here... What am I meant to be shooting???

Me finishing the Submarine level: 🤢 ah geez 🤮 aww man 😵‍💫

Don't have a ton to say about Gears 3, it was (surprisingly) the easiest of the trilogy, and my least favorite, particularly because of its disdain for heavy weaponry. In the previous games, certain ammo crates could reload your Boomshot or your Torque Bow. But no more! Even the Mulcher got its magazine nerfed from 500 to 200. Maybe the devs realized the game was already too easy and they had to take away extended access to the big toys so you didn't just breeze through it, idk. On the plus side, the Hammerburst got an aim-down-sights view and actually felt useful this time, but in general this didn't feel as good to play as its predecessors. Onward to Judgment!

Sifu is a game that loves Kung Fu. It loves the beauty of its movements and the elegance of its violence. Sifu loves Kung Fu movies and Kung Fu culture. But Sifu is not just a game about martial arts: It is a game that gives you the feeling of being a martial artist. Of becoming a master through repetition, understanding, and focus. To play this game and to return to it, over and over again, is to recognize that there is joy in practice, joy in learning. If I ever felt like I could not get better at Sifu, it would no longer be worth playing. Luckily, I don’t think that's something that'll ever happen.

Every car in this game has an anime girl paintjob, what's not to love?
Well, the fact that you have to play for hours to unlock difficulties that won't put you to sleep is a big flaw, but easily avoided nowadays when saved games are easily available online.
Now, GTI Club's review scores were extremely negative back when it came out, this does make sense since it came out at the time where arcade racers without dozens of hours of content where seen as disposable trash. I of course think that that approach to game analysis is extremely flawed, especially so in such a unique title.
Like the arcade games that preceded it Supermini Festa's course design is extremely open, and the care that went into making the courses resemble their real counterparts while still feeling like cutesy miniatures is evident. Both of these factors coupled with the very distinctive handling model that mixes accesibility with some respectable depth and a roster of playable cars composed entirely of compacts make Supermini Festa stand out from most others in its genre, a big feat considering how vast the arcade racing genre is.

Dangerous Driving is 3 people who worked on Burnout series in the past attempt to recreate Burnout 3 on Unreal Engine 4 for at the time modern gaming hardware.

Since this game release in 2019 nothing has changed in regards to the the Burnout series unavailability, majority of the series is still stuck on 6th generation of the consoles (PS2, gamecube, original xbox), with only only Burnout Paradise recieving so called "remastered" port on 8th generation (also backcompatable on the 9th) and PC.
And while Burnout Paradise is extremely cool racing game in its own right, even if its post launch changes via patches were arguably for the worse and obviously "remaster" was build on top of that foundation, while also introducing issues of it own.
Open world of Paradise City wouldnt be everyone cup of tea, nor is a replacement of the track design of prior games with both offering different and unique driving experiences.
So as it stands people who would want to experience track based Burnout experience on the hardware they would currently be using to play currently released games are out of luck.
Obviously even without this abstract idea about a sequel of any game taking advantage of the new technology on the new hardware is an appealing proposition, even if people dont really know what they would want from it aside from "more graphics".
Basically "next gen" Burnout game was most wanted, and EA with Criterion games reduced to a vegetable state in their basement wasnt there to provide it.

However in 2014 an independant studio Three Fields Entertaiment was founded by 3 ex Criterion Games staff members including people who were its original founding members.
Over the years so called "indie" developers in general did a pretty good job either breathing new love into the old concepts so called "AAA publishers" were ignoring or otherwise creating compenet replicas of such experiences.
Dangerous Driving however sadly was incompent replica of creators own past work.

Before delving into Dangerous Driving itself let me touch of the studio prior game as road that took us here.
In 2016 they would release a Dangerous Gold, a somewhat arcade'ish game about a ball bouncing around destructable physics based enviorment.
I think that was neat and captured idiosyncratic aspects of Criterion Games library of games that went beyond surface level "lol its destruction". The game had character, it had presentation.
However to my dissapoinment studio couldnt proceed in this direction. People really wanted creators of Burnout to create Burnout.
I wont be touching on Lethal VR due to it being a VR game (what an irony for post talking about unavailablity of old games due to hardware enjoying a modern game unavailability due to not having another type of hardware i guess).

In 2017 Danger Zone was released and it set a precedent that will dominate studio library "We will rebuild Burnout, but bits by bits releasing game modes as its own separate overpriced games".
Danger Zone seeked to recreate experience offered by the crash mode that first made an appearance in Burnout 2. The game was critised for having sterile presentation taking place in this testing fascility type enviorment and everything being framed as virtual simulation. However ironically i think it what it gives it a little bit of character compared to the sequel, for example said virtual simulation aspect informs how UI and HUD look etc.
Comparatively sequel Danger Zone 2 released in 2018 would take place on generic "hire this man" UE4 highways road, and all menus and HUD will become plain text. However it enabled gameplay to get additional layer of "driving to a crash zone", however those parts of stages were too long and lacked almost puzzle solving aspect of Burnout Revenge, and instead felt like a drawn out survival gaunlets you have to go thru before getting to main point of the game.
It really felt an attempt to sneak driving game in the it, however i think it result was overall detrimental.
However stages where you drive a huge truck and do traffic checking were a neat addition.
The games lack of presentation trully shows how much of a crazy work criterion put into likes of camera work and cars behaviour when they collide as well as individual destruction models. A gap current technology and hardware simply cant even begin to close, at least under circumstances of this game development.
Much akin to crash mode of Burnout 3 it feels like player is more rewarded for collecting multiplayer icons and crashing itself takes a back sit to it, arguably this issue is much worse for Danger Zone 2.

In 2019 Dangerous Driving finally would release, an attempt to recreate a main racing mode of Burnout 3 experience.
Players even will be greeted to imitation of graphic design of Burnout 3 menu upon booting the game, as well as the only song in the game. Obviously licensing music is a pricey endevour and neither hiring composers would be free, honestly there is something about how both Dangerous Driving and Danger Zone 2 before it just having spotify thing in the menu.
However i dont think playing with my favorite songs can beat a good original soundtrack or good selection of licensed music that will capture VIBES the game is going for.
However obviously having such option is good and respectable, even the game had its own music, because you may get tired of it.
Anyway not a point worth much dwelling on, but i think having races take place in silence unless you do something about it yourself is pretty reflective of the game overall.
It feel hollow.
Its a game that tries its hardest to just be another game without much to iterate upon it, and without competence to trully recreate it. Its a next gen Burnout that fails even without direct competetion, without its source of inspiration to compare it. Taxi Chaos gaining certain popularity despite being very bad imitation of Crazy Taxi it is not.
The game is called dangerous driving and act of driving in this game is indeed dangerous cuz the game tries to fall apart every second. Every turn you take makes your car feel like most fragile thing in the world ready to fall apart if you look at it funny. Walls and rails that were grindable against in burnout now make your car bounce so it just feels weird.
General gamefeel is just broken and it will make you apreciate most simple things you take for granted in other games, like car going catching the air from the jump.
Puttings Swans "Her Mouth is Filled with Honey" on spotify for races may be fitting, cuz this game may feel even more disempowering and scary than original first Burnout.
I honestly dont feel like mentioning its almost original game mode and returning stuff from Burnout 2 and Burnout Legends, cuz while its neat it just doesnt matter when basic act of playing is this poor.

Burnout series made the name for itself on its crashes, on even losing being fun cuz crashes are so entertaining to watch. Its more entertaining to watch Dangerous Driving crash itself, however this novelity of the game being so broken its funny isnt what one should pay for.

This game kinda exists because you cant play Burnout 3 anymore unless you either delve into emulation on PC or find actual PS2 to play it on. I dont get any joy from being negative about this game or people working on it.
I think its a broad videogame culture at fault for this game existence, a culture where individual games are inherently connected to hardware and software, a culture where companies purposufully keep past in the mist, a culture where people just want the same game again but more graphics.
However i dont want to take blame for poor game away from the developers even if their circumstances are understastable, they still sold it for too high of the price and handled launch pretty poorly.
Dangerous Driving is a momument to all our sins

never finished perseus mandate before, so i thought it was about time to do so. PM is the lowest the first F.E.A.R. can get, full of depressingly bland lighting, boring skirmishes, and weak additions. LithTech lighting is some of the greatest to be found in a game from its time and even today. Pitch-black silhouettes of enemies and deep voids accent the surfaces of F.E.A.R. to create an impeccable atmosphere. fighting in the shadows, exploring vents in a vacuum, and witnessing horrors in the dark, the stark lighting is great in the base game. timegate studios, for some reason, thought that the game should just have global illumination turned to 11, making nighttime outdoors combat incredibly drab. no muzzle flashes to light up dark corners or flashlights to cut through shadows, just plain ol', evenly lit arenas for 90% of the game. the arenas dont make it any better. many of them are boring single-floor, open rooms with boxes as the only cover. gone are the anxiously close-quarters gunfights of the original F.E.A.R. as most encounters are quick skirmishes across large rooms and halls. the verticality of the original made it even tenser when fighting enemies as they could flank from above or take a long winding path for a surprise attack. enemies in PM can barely surprise you. the new enemies arent even that interesting. the mercs are the same thing as the clone soldiers, so they're basically clones of clones. the quick ninja mercs are too tanky and quick to be entertaining fights, made worse by their usually terrible arenas. the new monster enemies are neat, made better by the area they're introduced in. that's probably the highlight of the expansion, the underground area where the invisible beasts kill your buddy chen. timegate remembered about the great lighting and puts it to great use while also putting f.e.a.r. in a new locale. it's a nerve-wracking level where you tiptoe and obsess over your flashlight battery. but good things always end and you get thrust back into the grinder of boring to decent fights. the new weapons arent even that exciting with a 'new' assault rifle (it has a scope?!?! woah..), a weaker railgun equivalent, a kinda sick grenade launcher, and a neat laser beam rifle. the placeable turret isnt really worth mentioning. Its only value is that it can distract enemies. the highs reached f.e.a.r.'s baseline, with great horror visuals and atmosphere on occasion. however, the lows were so low and more common, just dragging the expansion into a pitiful crater. it does scratch the f.e.a.r. gameplay loop at times, but it's not wholly worth getting into unless you're a big f.e.a.r.-head, which is the only reason i even decided to play it after hearing it was disappointing. a middle-of-the-road expansion, so replay f.e.a.r.