Entering the world of Kinopin one gets greeted by several difficulties and having played lots of first person shooters before, one might mistakenly go for something above normal after which the first thug will promptly explore the depths of their rear end. After swallowing their pride and turning the difficulty back to the supposed intended experience, the first thug will probably STILL make for a roadblock, making the player use their god given sands of time on f6, f8, f9 or whatever the fuck it's bound to. The goal clearly being to drive in the feeling of a cruel, dog eat dog world; one where you'd have to scavenge for dosh to survive and hire other thugs to protect your skin. This beginning is my favorite part of the whole thing; the alleyways feeling oddly immersive and my gun doing fuck all honestly reminded me of Deus Ex. And I suppose the really awkward pushing and pulling of boxes to get inside vents would also make some call for the ayy murs eve sim comparisons. Shortly after getting the shotgun the whole thing becomes easier as John Kingpin starts shredding thugs in run down apartment complexes (bit that reminded me of Max Payne somewhat). Allies that you hire have surprisingly good AI, better than I expected for sure, at least in the parts where they climb and jump over obstacles, really made me contemplate why many modern games can't pull it off as well. But when all is said and done, Kingpin isn't really that fun to play even though it is interesting. You mow down thugs, the gunplay ranges from boring to fine depending on weaponry and the whole thing is over in about 6 hours. You can buy upgrades at the shop but this fucker never has what I want I swear, so while unique for the time not a feature worth so much praise. No clue what the story was really about, they said fuck a lot which I liked. Never again, however, will I take having more than one track in a game's OST for granted, and even more so having the same track play again over itself after entering another area. May be an issue of myself not patching the thing proper(?) and if it's just a quirk I'm sure the 2023 remaster has fixed it already (HAHA).

Hitman games always had this great sense of place, heck I still remember all of the codename 47 levels and one might argue that they just got better and better as the series went on, not counting that absolute™ stinker later on. But in this one I just wanna live in, sipping coffee in Sapienza with the biggest assholes of the planet under Sun's golden rays, as they relay to me just how much they dislike colored people, support all ongoing wars and how baldness is not a genetic trait but merely a sign of excessive masturbation; how they just had a neck surgery so it's a lot less resistant to fiber wire, how they really need to relieve themselves but they're concerned since there's some pesky loud construction work going on near the bathrooms which might snuff out potential cries for help, and how most worryingly their bodyguard is busy elsewhere playing Honkai Star Rail because a certain smooth-headed gentleman told them the Fu Xuan banner ends in only a couple of hours (IO doesn't think you would have the heart to kill these people if you saw them petting a small deer).

To start off this monetization style was designed by Hitler. Not sure what kind of game deserves the unholy trio of money siphoning that is price for game + subscription + microtransaction store, but it ain't this one. The often applauded mentality of FFXIV's creator that one should play other games; that this one doesn't intend to jam its claws in you like many live service titles do, that the world will always be there waiting for its heroes to come back - is at odds with the aforementioned subscription model and comes across as a bit cynical. Yeah the game will be waiting for you as long as you pay up motherfucker, your monthly just renewed and you're burned out? May as well play the month out, don't wanna waste that hard earned coin do we? No pressure though! This of course isn't enough, The Heart of the Party that is Blizzard deserves yet another commendation for inspiring its competitors to stoop to the same level with the addition of a microtransaction shop, except the majority seems okay with this implementation because... it's not in-game? A 5headed loophole perhaps and I've seen claims that it's not as bad as others but I'm sorry, 7 fucking USD for a tea drinking emote? We've gone way past micro ladies and gents, I better get a stat boost every time I take a sip or you're taking the fucking piss. Sure I'm not so much of a dreamer to think that a live service game can continue servicing on LOVE™ alone like those 5 people still playing Guild Wars 2 (please no one tell them that it also has a shop with gold buying), with it needing server maintenance, events, updates, usual speak. But for the 3 or so months that I've been playing, every event has been an almost complete joke, crappy series of whocares cutscenes with a small reward attached, maybe a cosmetic item or 2 that fail to serve as anything other than a thing to flex on new players a year from now as a "look what you can't get ;)" before they promptly ignore you for looking like a goddamn clown. The event going on as of time of writing is admittedly the best one because you can get the funny chubby pokeymans, but... this is their 10th anniversary, an outlier and something that should've arguably been grander, and yet all they did was make you grind through old content for event currency. Maybe it would be unfair to compare it to gacha games considering their immense revenue, though I'm left wondering still what all this asking money is for; a hope that Dawntrail won't be Dawnfail, or maybe the slightly touched up visuals that were recently announced? You guys all have mods right?

Since ranting about shitthatdoesntmatter inevitably calls for the "just get more money" rebuttal, how's the game itself? Yet another modern MMO where the leveling experience is a slightly annoying rash that hopefully will go away one day if ignored enough, with only actual challenge awaiting in lategame trials and raids? Don't answer that of course, and for anyone remotely initiated that's not a flex of gamercred; it feels like a more casual, multitask-encouraging experience by design and that's not always the worst thing. Here and there I'd come across praises how XIV allegedly revolutionized the genre for people, and some of that speak I'd echo even; while maybe not a pioneer in this regard, it does feel better not running all the way back to the dungeon or a boss after a wipe ("social experience" as WoW players would call it) or having your goldbag guillotined just for wanting to respec. Eyebrow raising though is that those same people will complain about the "gather 10 bear asses" type of quest design so infamous for the genre, which I'd agree is largely basic and sucks, so how does XIV solve it? By making you gather only 3, brilliant. I jest a bit, story context makes it better but not everyone gives a damn about the story. Thinking about how many missions boil down to going to a purple circle or interacting with a marker which makes a couple of hostiles spawn (usually 3) brings forth depression, there's very little variety. On top of that playing this thing like a usual MMO, grabbing every sidequest one comes across, is the biggest mistake you could make as they give fuck all rewards and it's just infinitely wiser to push the main scenario along or at least do almost any of the other side activities like the random blue circles on the map which still give more experience for less time and effort. The main stuff alone will overboost your primary job, so I wondered what the situation is like on one of the preferred servers that give a significant +exp, made a char after which the first guild quest granted me about 5 levels on completion which genuinely reminded me of playing some private server or a game at its death door. Can see how this would make leveling side jobs much less of a hassle later on but it fucks up any shred of balance and fun. And naturally since everything's so easy it deemphasizes working with other players most of the time so they only ever get /pets if one likes the shape of their rabbit ears and not because they actually helped.

A lot of the lauded main story is very snooze inducing, there's so much backtracking working as a de facto fantasy world postman in a setting where telepathic cellphones exist (or something like that). It also reaches some genuinely embarrassing lows, like throwing away macguffins of unlimited power off the side of the cliff (surely the dimension hopping dementors following our every move won't dig them up?). The weird kicker here being that... I kinda like it? Stockholm syndrome sadly kicked in and maybe all this can be taken with a couple of salt masses. Admitting to your mistakes is one thing but also canonizing them in a successful way is another; the 1.0 version was such a shitshow that it had to be burned down, with a meteor very literally. What's left is a new beginning, a chosen one story that appears like a seemingly thankless job, in its downtime you're left listening to constant whimpers of your companions; and honestly why? Why would elf grandpa give his life away for the thousands of face 1 hime cut lizards and fair-haired not-Y'shtollas spamming the bee gees dance in Limsa, while calling me basic for picking a midlander in a world with felines and bunnoids? Why give away everything so this ungrateful scum can still complain about CBU3 not adding more than 4 faces; that they still can't separate facial hair or horns or ears from mug types, tech-illiterate peasants unable to comprehend how hard it is to master this otherworldly technology. How many more cries about not being able to change eye color without paying real $$$ must we listen to, this asshole, entitled community really believes that a world with mechs and spaceships should also have colored contact lenses? Never expected the Postman of Light's job to give me an existential crisis; it's thankless and at times unbearable but somebody has to do it, a lightbulb moment that finally helped me realize how Death Stranding fans can enjoy such a horrible looking game.

The combat lacks punchiness of some others in the genre and is known to give eye crust in its snailish starts, but feels more like an elaborate dance later on as you're constantly cycling through skills, weaving them between one another without even looking at their cooldowns; I missed that feel when you finally memorize all 30 keybinds for your abilities and slam them so methodically like you're piloting a spaceship. With Linkin Park in my veins and an unending will to compensate I stuck with the dark knight for the most part because casting abilities with names like EDGE OF DARKNESS and THE BLACKEST NIGHT is in my M.O; tanks in this game would make Warthunder jealous, their mere presence making enemies mald in furious anger as they mumble AM's hate monologue while being unable to target anyone but your flesh carapace of mithril steel; the drawback to insane sustain and option to aggro everything with a press of a button being of course the ability to also do a lot of damage, carefully balanced. And as the combat gets more involved so does the narrative, maybe insisting far too much at times at fishing for soyface YT thumbnails with fairly constant references to the rest of the franchise, but some of it does work (an encounter with a certain wandering ronin and an order of knights were highlights). Like habitually stated the postman's journey DOES get more interesting in the expansions and this rating is more so for their starting experience, but it's not a wholly "it gets better after x hours" scenario since many of my complaints still ring true and I'm not sure how long I'll keep going at it. Currently running through Stormblood and it kinda fucks but the burnout is real (Takedown to be specific as the bi-yearly replay started).

I questioned if I would turn into that annoying type of Steam reviewer with this kind of rambling. More than 300 hours in and a lot about the game bothers me, will there be enough good to mention even? Suppose I'll turn to the saying of a wise man who once noted that "playing an MMORPG these days really just boils down to what kind of dick you want to suck". Other than the monetization, nothing in this is offensively bad but the highs aren't that high either. So what else are you gonna play if you need the fix? World of Peacecraft is a dead horse so used to beating it developed M tendencies, while Classic is a shadow of not only vanilla but also its 2019-20 self. Old School Runescape is fine enough but if the wi-fi in your retirement home goes out you're fucked. No other MMO is being played and if you see anyone saying otherwise they're probably a federal agent so watch yourself.

Starts off with a bang then immediately devolves into snoozetown in the second level as you try to thwart what seems to be the biggest drug operation ever (destroy 16 more drug tables chief) and then never recovers. Core mechanics are fun even if they don't seem to gel best with mouse+kb, common comparison is Max Payne but this could never reach the same level of artistry what with complete lack of interesting story or motives or atmosphere or level design or... Worth a play still but probably one of the longest feeling short games out there.

Some of these changes are good and all but ah... comrades... fellow gamers... at the cost of losing all my gamer cred I have to admit, I cannot for the life of me beat Creaking skull. The thing was bad enough as is, but these fuckers gave it, what I assume to be complete invincibility as well as ability to track you across other games??? My soul cannot know rest so please... Currently I'm playing Super Mario Bros 3 and I'm expecting it to follow... so if you could leave a summon sign somewhere in world 3 I'll be sure to find it and we can take it down together. Just to avoid any confusion my name is soulsucker69 and please please don't take any of my super mushrooms or super leaves...