everyone sucking overwatch 1 off back on that games launch genuinely made me feel like some weird space alien. it seems like public opinion has finally course corrected to some form of "it was fun the first year or so" but this doesn't properly acknowledge that the game has always been just terrible to play. titanfall 2 came out the same year as overwatch and i was just supposed to act like this slow ugly fps with the worst movement you will ever experience was somehow bringing back arena shooters. thankfully it faded from the public consciousness fast so now they've rereleased it without really changing anything to drum up engagement. they also purposefully bottlenecked the servers on launch to boost demand in the cheapest possible way and get people tweeting the word "overwatch." literally just go play fortnite instead of this for a better looking and feeling shooter in every conceivable way

disgustingly bad. it's clear painstaking work was put into the engine in an attempt to bring the visuals up to Next Generation Standards and it still somehow looks like slurry churning on your screen constantly. i would be knocked straight out of my chair if i was presented with proof that this game had any art director at all. to compliment this stunning visual package bethesda has graced us with one of the most frivolous and completely boring stories ever put into a video game. whenever i see just how many units this game moved i feel like i can't breathe.

god of war 2018 (and to a much lesser extent the last of us) got basically all its cultural clout off the back of this game. i think having the development experience from dead space 1 really helped visceral nail minute details that most other ""prestige"" developers totally ignore in favor of extreme scale. the lighting especially is so considered and thoughtful in almost every room across this entire game. it's really got that arkham knight magic where the graphics are better then most big $70 releases we see nowadays. i don't care that it's way louder and more brash then dead space and has really weird pacing sometimes this is an absolutely perfect video game.

hard to rate this one. ⚠️BORING⚠️ bad campaign that does a lot of lifting from other games seemingly at random (uncharted 3 and watch dogs 1 are the biggest sources here) but is otherwise just dumb in the normal us military propaganda way. it is funny how hard this tries to be sicario but only by lifting flavors from that movie and sidestepping the cia/military criticisms. it makes the whole thing weirdly disjointed and sometimes totally schizophrenic.
the ui feels like a psychic assault at all moments but i actually really enjoy the overall unlock and progression systems. this is the first time a cod has managed to make me push myself outside my comfort zone in terms of weapon and loadout choices. the gunplay is really sharp but the maps are generally pretty bad. you are constantly reminded that this whole game is built around warzone to an alarming degree. even without the mode out yet you can see its gestalt defining the boundaries of entire systems. in the case of maps it really holds them back. discrete chunks pulled from warzone just don't feel as purpose built as all of the mw 2019 maps did. a lot of similar layouts and identical skyboxes that all conform to a very obvious grid.
i was never big into warzone but i'll try it when it's out. i am excited for the tarkov ripoff they're including and overall i'm having a lot of fun with this game but you can really really see the seams in every single aspect with this one. raw in a way cod generally isn't

the new xbox lets you suspend a game and pick it back up whenever so every now and then i'll boot this up and do a couple of towers and an investigation and then play something else for another week or so. insanely weird game that i love even though it's actually kinda terrible. making a game set during the third crusade is already just so different and out there and the layer the animus adds on everything is so nuts. the present day stuff only exists so that every single system in the game is completely diegetic, which is probably why every entry after this one immediately started spinning out and crashing with the desmond shit. i can't think of many other games that lay themselves out like this one. it isn't actually good but i think it's very cute.

i think my ideal racing game would completely do away with any sort of voice acting and wouldn't bother with a overarching story as a way to motivate the player into the various races and challenges. of all genres i think racing titles have to potential to make really compelling gameplay loops that are enhanced by a lack of explanation or justification. wanting to go fast and make a cool looking car is its own motivation. cutscenes, phone calls between races, an end point to a story, distractions that pull focus from everything that actually matters. so many games in this series alone are made worse for just trying to explain themselves instead of letting the driving systems speak for themselves.
unbound at least makes the narrative into a gameplay concern. kinda dead rising in how it asks you to work within a set timetable which i really love. the first racing game in a good long while that's really broken out of the traditional open world racing structure and attempts to force new playstyles and ways of thinking about very traditional racer activities. i want to revisit this title someday and see if i can't crack it open.

i feel like the wider conversation around both left 4 dead games (and most of valve's catalogue at large) has turned negative. i don't think any of valve's games are necessarily perfect but i do feel there's some overcorrection going on. every game after half life was half life and every game after left 4 dead was left 4 dead. in that sense i can understand feeling tired of how these games are now basically unavoidable but like come on. what is there to hate about left 4 dead. it literally has everything you could ever want in a video game. its got level design. its got characters saying pills. its got pacing. its got movement (in the way that every source title has ""movement""). its got guns. for a good while every person on earth was sucking valve off for everything they did (i still suck valve off extremely frequently) and i totally understand that it got really annoying. they do make really good video games though.