Jackunpack

The single-player matters! You cannot release a game with a full single-player mode and then say: "It's all about the multi-player". Some people actually don't care about MP so you cannot be a unbiased reviewer and only talk about one part of the game. So let's begin with the single-player. It is a complete mess. The AI is beyond stupid, they will just run at you until gunned down. They won't use strategy, they won't use cover, they won't flank or even do much to kill you at all. The sound design makes the guns un-satisfying to use as they lack any real impact. The story is your usual "America good. Middle-East terrorist.". It's getting tiresome running around desert-filled streets shooting anything that isn't white. The story is presented in such a bad way that you have to piece together the whole thing by yourself. It took me more than one playthrough to even understand what was going on. Characters don't act realistically so you will never understand their motivations. It seems they came up with a half a dozen set-pieces and just built the story around them. In the first Modern Warfare it was shocking when your character died in a nuclear explosion so naturally, they thought that they would try to recreate that in this game. You are killed (as part of the story) about 4 times. I really hope that I misunderstood this because it's not surprising when you do it every 10 minutes. And speaking of minutes, there aren't that many in the story. The main campaign might take you 4 or 5 hours. This is unacceptable and absolutely pathetic. Alright, multi-player. It's broken. The weapons are so imbalanced that less than a dozen guns are actually used by players and if you try to use anything else you will be mauled to the ground like a baby by a dozen rabid pit-bulls. Rewarding kills with even more ridiculous ways to kill people is just plain stupid. If you are not extremely skilled at this game you will be killed repeatedly by the same guy and when you think you can kill him, he comes back in a chopper. And then he drops a nuke on you. The maps are awfully designed and don't encourage anything other than the run and gun technique. They are way too small and cramped and the amount of players on each server is laughable. You also don't have any dedicated servers, you can't kick/ban, you cannot choose maps and so on. The FOV is freaking ridiculous as well and it gives me eye-strain just looking at it for half an hour. This game is a mess and Activision must have been **** off a lot of critics out there to recieve an 86 on Metacritic.

This could be phenomenal if they only balanced it properly. I'm not even going to bother explaining what League of Legends is; you already know. It's baby's first DotA. What the game does well is being just that. It is easy to start playing and it's not hard to actually get good at the game, provided you give it some time. Every two weeks Riot dishes out a new batch of free-to-play champions. These are the champions that you will be playing with until you can afford to buy your own. Now, the biggest advantage that League has over its competitors is that it's easy to get into it and that is why this system is absolutely idiotic. Some weeks the champions available will just not appeal to the newbie and then they will be forced to try out uninteresting champions until they can finally buy one of their own. The next problem that arises is that you have no idea if you're actually going to like that champion. If you're not buying the cheapest ones then you will have to play countless hours to afford something acceptable and if you then end up not liking that champion then that time will have been a complete waste. But if you are rich then that's no problem! In League you can use real-life cash to buy in-game items; ranging from champions to XP-boosters. I really don't have a problem with this, however. You cannot directly use real money to get better at the game. You can't buy +50% damage or something like that so I agree with this business-model. The gameplay is essentially fun but it has a tonne of problems. First of all, the game is horribly imbalanced. The difference between the best and the worst champions is vast and this leads to certain champions being played every single game. You don't really have a choice if you want to succeed at the game; the best champions are simply better. I realize that it's difficult to balance so many champions and I don't expect perfection but take a look at DotA 2 for instance. The game has some issues but you can always counter a hero that is generally better than yours. In League there is nothing you can do against a skilled Master Yi or whoever. This needs to be fixed, right now. Also, you will master the game quickly. The skill-roof is very low and I had nothing left to learn once I hit level 15 or so. Mistakes are not punished properly as you can always use Flash and teleport to safety. There is no penalty for going back to the Well since you can just teleport there. I could go on and on but I won't. The game could potentially be fun but when you're having a good game your opponents will just press the surrender button instead of trying to turn the tides of battle. If all of these issues are fixed then this is a very good game but otherwise it is average. Run of the mill. Adequate.

I so wish that this was better! Let me get this out of the way: BFBC2 is one of the best FPS I've ever played. It changed everything about the genre for the better. Destructible terrain, fantastic visuals and sound effects. Tight controls and satisfying weapons. Battlefield 3 keeps a lot of it but also screws some things up. Massively. First and foremost, the campaign ****. Truly. You know they don't care any more when they start ripping of the story of Call of Duty games. Really, that's like a gourmet restaurant taking tips from MacDonald's. The gameplay isn't enjoyable without other players since the AI is dumber than my hat. There is no co-op feature and the whole thing is just a mess. But Battlefield is all about the multiplayer, right? BC2 was, I know that for a fact. The problem is that BC2 had a great campaign as well. There were interesting characters with good dialogue and it wasn't just set piece after set piece holding together a paper-thin plot. Anyway, that's enough rambling; how is the actual multiplayer? To answer my own question: it's solid. Not amazing but not terrible either. The weapons feel very powerful and are satisfying to use. There are some blatant balance issues but they can be overlooked. The biggest problem is the original set of maps. They are large, sure, but they were not actually that well designed (most of them, that is) and they actually had to bring in Strike at Karkand (still a masterpiece of map-design) to mix things up. The most pressing issue is that the maps usually don't support more than one playstyle. Some maps are impossible to play without a Sniper and some are so cramped and tight that that isn't even an option. A large map isn't any good if you don't use it to its fullest. The destructible terrain is still impressive but not used as much as you would want and probably not even as much as in BC2. And the final problem is Origin. This was not taken into account when I was considering the game's score. Origin is an absolutely awful program. I don't even have a problem with the fact that it's always online but it doesn't work. At all. I really haven't been able to play the game for months because Origin doesn't let me start it. I've contacted EA and they haven't been able to solve the issue. This is unacceptable and if this is the case in BF4 then I will never buy a game from EA ever again.

*Consider this a review of both Diablo 2 and its expansion pack.* You know there is a reason why this is one of the most beloved games of all time. It, along with the original and a couple more are the only hack-and-slash games that I would actually consider good. In fact, this is so good that it is one of the 4 games that I think are worth the 10/10 rating and believe me, I don't say that lightly. Diablo 2 comes together so amazingly in every single aspect that it's hard to fault even today. Sound, graphics and overall presentation are all great and they hold up surprisingly well for a game that came out in the year 2000. But none of those things even matter, really. Even if they were below average this game would be great because of one single thing; the gameplay. It's fun to look at this game and see that Blizzard actually could balance classes and it is laughable that they still haven't been able to do that in World of Warcraft. Every class (including the two expansion-classes) is enjoyable, unique and never over-powered. They all have strengths and weaknesses and the only thing that will make you bad at this game is you. The challenge of the game escalates at a comfortable rate. The game understands that your skills during the first few quests won't be optimal and therefore you are allowed to make mistakes here and there. The challenge does come quickly, however, and that is where a lot of the fun comes in. When you spend 10 minutes trying to defeat a boss and you finally succeed, only to be greeted with the most fantastic loot you've received yet is one of the most rewarding experiences you'll ever have in a game. And if your play through wasn't hard enough you can start a new game plus mode after you've completed the game. You might think that replaying the same 5 acts again would be repetitive but it surprisingly isn't. The environments are varied between the acts and they are also to a degree, randomized. Don't think that you know where everything is just because you've done it before. And the enemy variety is superbly fine-tuned. New types of foes are introduced constantly and enemies return with new stats, skills, properties and tricks. On your second play through you will find that you cannot even kill some enemies with a certain tactic; to take down an ice-immune you can't cast ice-bolts and hope to kill them. And if THAT wasn't hard enough you can play a third and final time where everything is cranked up to max. If you aren't prepared you will be crushed (trust me, I learned the hard way) and that adds to this game's appeal. But why is this challenge so very welcome? Why is it even fun to play when you die? Because the loot is insane. The rare items you find will have magical properties that actually make a difference. You can receive skills that aren't even available to your class. You can pick up a sword that shoots fire-balls and it's just epic to behold. I can't even count how many hours I've put into this game and it would be an insult to not give it a 10/10. That doesn't mean it's perfect but it is so amazing that the flaws are completely overshadowed and barely noticeable.

I have never quite understood why people act as if this game series is slightly more incredible than the concept of breathing. I've played the second and third game in the series and they are by no means bad but I've never found them as enjoyable as the people who have apparently been getting blowjobs by Microsoft while playing the game. In any case, Halo: Reach is a strong entry in the series with a few quirks that hold it back from being incredible. The single player is probably the best thing about the game; the characters are interesting enough (if a bit generic) and the voice-acting and sound design is superb. Graphics are phenomenal and the overall presentation is outstanding. The problem is the same as in all Halo games the combat is so unbelievably average. The weapons have not changed (basically) and most of them lack any real impact as everything is so bullet-spongy it's sickening. For anyone who isn't a top-player this game will be extremely RNG. The best tactic for beginners is simply to pick up an assault rifle and hold down the trigger until something falls over. You will have to play hours and hours before any other strategy becomes even valid. The enemies are very same-y and these fights are only broken up by turret-sections (snore) and some very welcome and well-designed air-combat. But the story comes to a satisfying conclusion and the final parts of gameplay are very intense and emotional. The multi-player is what people are the most worked up about, however and I just don't understand why. The customization is fantastic but once again if you aren't a hard-core player you'll never get to play around with it properly. The combat is the same as in the single-player but the weapon-variety is for the most part even worse. The forge mode and theater are the only two things that keeps the multiplayer fresh. You can save replays and edit them in the theater and here you can do some pretty incredible stuff if you know what you are doing. Forge is a powerful tool if you're interested at all in creating your own maps. It is a bit limited but fun if you can work around its limitations. So overall Halo: Reach is neither awful nor spectacular. It's just plain ol' good.

It's good but I can't help but feel that it should have been more. The originals strengths remain; storytelling, voice-acting and difficult and satisfying decisions. It's nice to see that what you decide impacts the wrap-up at the end of this 1-2 hour experience but I can't help but feel that we should have gotten more time with each character. Don't get me wrong the characters are good (great in some cases) but without the long character development of the original title you don't care a tiny bit about them. But as a teaser for the next season, this game works for the most part. It provides some thrills and if these characters properly impact the impending story then it's completely fine. If only we had had a running time of twice what we got then this might have been the best thing I've ever bought for 5 bucks but it does fall a bit short of that, especially with the quality I've come to expect from this series. In any case, if you enjoyed the original then there is no reason why you shouldn't buy this instead of an ice-cream.

I looked forward to this game so damn much. The second Diablo game is one of the best games I've ever played because it combined a variety of elements so extremely well and managed to be completely unique and quite different from its predecessor. Which is the first and biggest problem with Diablo 3; it's a bloody mess. The difficulty has been scaled back from very hard to kindergarten-hard. The economy is broken you can buy a single item for a very cheap price and you will wreck the next 3 acts that you play. The new skill-system seemed like a good idea when you realized that it didn't encourage switching your game-style. You will literally just choose a few spells and use them act after act after act. The skills are also unimaginative and most are completely useless which is why only a chosen few are good enough for the later stages of the game. This makes everything repetitive and very grindy. Spamming a single ability over and over again until everything is dead is NOT a good way to do things. Which brings me to my next problem; the loot is so boring! In Diablo 2 you could pick up an armour and gain access to an ability that your class couldn't even use. In Diablo 2 you could get a weapon that had a chance of shooting fireballs at your enemies. In Diablo 3 you get items with stats like: +361 dexterity and +270 vitality. They do no difference whatsoever and this is really a deal-breaker in a game that relies so heavily on loot and gear. And always online DRM is unacceptable. I'm not even mad that I couldn't play the game when I first got it. That was a long time ago and it was fixed; it's fine. But I should never ever have to be online to play an offline game. That is the dumbest thing they could've possible done and it absolutely infuriates me. Diablo 2 improved on great features. Diablo 3 removed them.

As a huge fan of the second game it may be true that my expectations were a bit too high. I thought that they would deliver the kind of sequel that takes the good elements of its predecessor and make them even better. Saints Row The Third does certainly crank it up but it cranks it up in places where it isn't needed. The best example is the humour; SR2 was a silly game but it also took itself seriously as well, from time to time. In the third game the humour is still immature and silly but the second game was clever too. The writing in my opinion went completely out the window; now it feels like they're just pandering to reach out to as big an audience as possible. Combat is very repetitive as the AI is straight up **** and the harder enemies are not hard because they're well-designed but more so because they just have larger health-pools than their low-life counterparts. Weapon-variety is welcome here but doesn't really save the gameplay when that's what you'll be doing most of the time. Character-customization is absolutely ridiculous (not as good as in SR2 though) and that is probably the game's biggest strength as both the story and gameplay fall short. My last gripe is that the characters are very bland and boring. This is most likely as a result of the lack-luster writing, all the gangs seem insignificant and not one of them stands out as truly unique or interesting.

Crysis 2 is not a terrible game but it is underwhelming. My main gripe with the first game was that it wasn't open enough to really show off the impressive graphics. The second game is while not linear much less open than the original. And the game is also restricted to a city that really doesn't do the graphics engine justice. The story is also not as good as I would've wanted it to be it's not very original and never manages to build any real momentum. Probably the biggest disappointment for me is the suit-powers. There are only two now and they do not provide any strategical variety. The multi-player is a step-up but not very good either. It rips off other games and doesn't do anything new. The number of weapons availble is staggeringly low and they mostly feel the same. The balancing is abysmal and connection problems ruin a lot of what can be relatively fun.