aidanpscott

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Because the games that have come out this year have largely ****, with a few exceptions such as God of War and Halo Online (Thanks to Microsoft and 343, nobody can download it, sadly), I actually went back to all my old games and started replaying them. Baldur's Gate I, II, Dark Alliance I/II, KotOR I and II, The Oddworld games, the Jedi Knight games, you name it. I also ended up replaying the original NWN games (with the two main expansions) on my mac. I finished right around the time this game came out and, out of love for the franchise, bought it on steam. Because I have replayed the original unenhanced version of NWN, it was fresh in my mind and I will be comparing it to the enhanced edition. First off, the enhanced edition has some serious problems. In order for your game to look appealing at all, you have to disable Vibrance and Ambient occlusion, and then it essentially looks like the old game. It runs a lot slower than the original edition that I have, but I do believe this is because the enhanced edition is built off of the NWN Diamond Edition of Neverwinter Nights, which I remember having serious frame rate issues back in the day. The game has little to no changes that are actually good, aside from the fact that they added skyboxes and roofing, which would be a cool edition if it didn't mess with certain cinematic scenes in the process (Drogan's battle at the beginning of SotU, the rafters gets in the way of the scene). The game has all the content you remember and the multiplayer is back, which is awesome! I am so glad because I loved the NWN multiplayer back in the day, despite its flaws (and their are quite a few). They work, connection is fine. I personally haven't noticed many issues with it. I am using a mac to play the game and have the CEP mod installed, which is great, except for the fact that robes and cloaks/capes make me invisible. They don't render without updated Nvidia drivers, which ****. I would have uninstalled it if not for the fact that I need it to play on specific community created modules, such as the Aeilund Saga. This isn't a slight on the game, however, as it is a problem with the mod itself. It's an issue I wanted to put out their if anyone was considering getting the game for mods such as Aeilund. The game has problems, glitches, more bugs than the original game and that is a problem. This is a REMASTERED game, so why is it worse?!?! Running out of space, so I'm gonna leave it at that. I had REALLY HIGH hopes for the studio developing the game, Beamdog, who is founded and headed by BioWare's former co-founder Trent Oster. As most of you probably know, Beadog has performed HORRIBLY! It **** because I really want to like them and support the enhanced versions of the games they are making; I love Baldur's Gate, I love Neverwinter Nights, and I am hoping they might do something similar with the KotOR games, but they seem to have been half-assing these "enhanced editions" simply to milk the money off of gamers who are fed up with this insufferable modern day, "Triple A" gaming market that continuously makes sub-par games riddled with bugs, glitches, and worst of all, microtransactions and lootboxes. Beamdog's "enhancements" have only made the games worse! It doesn't hep that Beamdog is injecting SJW themes into these games we love (Siege of Dragonspeare, the Baldur's Gate expansion I never thought I would get, is riddled with SJW messages!) I WANT Beamdog to succeed! I WANT to like them, but how can I when they make these sub-par remastered games! In my opinion, if you are as fed up with the gaming market as I have been, I would highly recommend going back to your old games and playing the hell out of them. Get your 360 out, your PS3, and play some genuinely good games. If you want to play NWN, I recommend playing the original version over this one. BUT... if you want to get back into the multiplayer setting of NWN, you will need to get the Enhanced Edition since Gamespy, the company who was powering the multiplayer servers, shutdown. I am really loving the MP setting and I got my friends into it recently, which is awesome! I have 90 hours played on it right now, and I plan on playing more. But I could have just as easily done so on the original version. If you, by chance, no longer have your old copy of NWN, I would actually recommend getting this game instead of rebuying the older versions, primarily because NWN EE is cheaper ($19.99). Just disable Vibrance and Ambient Occlusion in the video settings, get the necessary mods, do what you can to keep it running, and you might as well be playing a slightly worse version of the original thing. In terms of content, this would have been a 7/10 (Good, by my standard), but considering this is a remaster of the original thing, one of the worst remasters I have ever played, I have to give it a 4 (Sub-Par). It's NWN, you know what to expect, but it IS objectively worse than the original version.

Here's the thing: I didn't expect this game to have a good story. I expected an open world with repetitive missions, and I expected cliche characters, and that is what this game has. What I didn't expect this game to have is great gameplay because that is what this game definitely has is some of the best gameplay I've seen in a Tom Clancy game in years! This game is essentially a US Military Covert Ops simulator. You have a mission in a designated area (No surprise) and you choose how you want to approach the mission. You can run in guns blazing (Which I don't normally ever do) or you can work with your team to stealthily eliminate enemies within a given radius, move in, rinse and repeat. This game is best played with friends! There is little enjoyment for anyone looking to play 15+ hours of this game on his or her own because as I've established, this game is repetitive and it isn't a game you play for the story. I would also like to point out that when I customized my character, I made sure he looked just like a US marine in fully-camoed IBA, kevlar gear similar to that of a US soldier that added an element of realism to my game. My friends did the same and we had a blast pretending to be a covert ops seal team behind enemy lines. Aside from the mediocre story, bland characters, and repetitive levels, there are, however, a few issues I had with the game. While the armor customization is good, the character customization is very limited. You have a select few heads to choose from (similar to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic back on the original Xbox system) and that ****! I also would have loved some more armor customization options and weapons to go along with the game. This game is far from perfect! I expected a mediocre game with little enjoyability and because of that I was very pleasantly surprised. Until I played the beta, I didn't even have any interest in buying the game after the disappointing Division and Rainbow Six Siege games released! This isn't the best Ghost Recon game, in fact I believe it is far from it, but that's okay because what I got is something I've been wanting to see in a modern military shooter for a long time. My dad, a former US infantry specialist even came down and saw me playing the game. He commented on the game and was surprised by the level of detail went into my decisions during various missions throughout the game and he doesn't like modern military video games (because he feels they dilute the actual experience, kind of like the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games) I really enjoyed this game! And if you had my low expectations for it, I'm sure you would too! Final Verdict: 8/10 (It's a really good, but very flawed game!)

Holy s***, I have never played a game so smoothly on any console, even on the Playstation 4! For those of you who do not know, this is a rerelease of Halo Wars that is available as part of the Halo Wars 2 Ultimate Edition (for $80). I actually really enjoyed the first Halo Wars. It had issues and lacked content, especially Multiplayer content, but as someone who had never played an RTS prior to Halo Wars, I thought it was a really good intro point. The definitive edition gives you everything in the previous game including all the DLC, just like a Game of the Year edition does, except this game offers incredibly smooth gameplay that, as far as I have played, offers true 60 FPS on a console game. This is largely due to the fact that Halo Wars was a 360 game transferred into the more powerful engine of the Xbox One, so that shouldn't be too surprising, but many other xbox 360 titles, especially backwards compatible games like Halo Reach did not function nearly as well as this game. This is smooth! It's just as good as you remembered it! If you haven't played the first Halo Wars, I would highly recommend getting the Halo Wars 2 Ultimate Edition since you are getting 2 games for $80. That said, I am disappointed that Microsoft did not give us the option to purchase this game separately. For me, the first Halo Wars game was a 7/10 (Good) and this one is an 8 considering how smooth the gameplay is and considering it's a part of an $80 package, which includes the Season Pass! NOTE: I do not, however, recommend getting the $80 edition of Halo Wars 2 unless you have not played the first game or unless you are a really big fan of the first halo wars and/or a big fan of the halo franchise in general. I wish I had waited until today to get this game to play it for the first time because it definitely performs better than before.

*If you have not played Skyrim and have not purchased the game, this is a must buy! You have a chance to the play the masterpiece, with all the free DLC, and now, with mods! This review is merely for those of us who have already purchased the game and spend hundreds or even thousands of hours playing the previous game!* Skyrim is considered by many, myself included, to be one of the greatest games of all time! To this day, tens of thousands continue to play this immersive game. It's overflowing with content (some would consider this to be overwhelming; a negative in their eyes), dripping with atmosphere, and epic beyond proportion! This generation of gaming has seen many remakes of classic games, including the first two halo games, gears of war, recently Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Skyrim, and soon, Final Fantasy VII. Unfortunately, these remakes have been either a hit or a miss in the eyes of many gamers around the world. The changes that developers made to the games have split the community. Fortunately, Skyrim doesn't change much with its world beyond adding mods and upgrading the graphics, but that begs the question: Why release a game if you don't make any changes or take meaningful risks. The special edition includes all DLC and the content you know and love from the original game, the gameplay is as good as you remember, and while the graphical changes aren't immediately noticeable, you will find changes, as you wonder around the world of Tamriel, to the textures of the water, the mountains, and varying landscapes. The thing is, Bethesda didn't really need to upgrade anything because the game includes free mods that upgrade the graphics and textures to an unparalleled level! The issue is that when you play with mods, achievements are disabled, which makes sense, but is very annoying. I don't know anyone who bought this game and decided not to play with mods. I am already 30 hours in and I can't unlock a single achievement unless I disable my mods, which, sometimes can break the game. Now, the game runs smoothly on consoles, though not at the level of a PC platform. This is what those of us who played the 360 Skyrim in order to prepare for the special edition will immediately notice. However, one of the biggest complaints I, and many others have with this edition, is that Bethesda did not fix the bugs, glitches, and various problems with the previous game! (Skyrim is a masterpiece, but every game has its issues) Things like crashes, corrupted save files, locked camera angles (when you mine ore and the camera is stuck in place afterwards) have not been fixed! Here's the thing: Bethesda could have made Skyrim backwards compatible with the Xbox One WHILE also adding mods to the game and giving it a patch (which is what 343 did with Halo Reach), but instead they decided to rerelease it at a full price of $60 in order to make more money off of the gaming community. If you bought the game already, you are just rebuying it for mods. Don't get me wrong, it's great, and I would argue it's even better with the mods than ever! I will say that whenever I'm considering purchasing a game for consoles, Mods is now a MUST HAVE whenever I make a purchase! The Special Edition doesn't add anything new that justifies reselling the game at a full price, when they could have easily just update the 360 game with mods and made it backwards compatible on the 360. While I would say the Special Edition is a 9/10 on the PS4, the Xbox Version (And PC version) gets a 6/10 (Decent) not because it's a decent game because it's a masterpiece still, but because we already bought it for $60. We are spending another $60 for the same game with mods, which disables achievements. This game is merely an update for the game, which should have been free or at the most $10! I know the game has a ton of content that is worth more than the $60 we gave Bethesda, but we have all played the content before. Rebuying what you already is, in my opinion, moronic. However, if you are a die hard fan and want to experience the mods for yourself, I would recommend having some self control and waiting for the price to go down. I wouldn't be surprised if that happened soon. Here's the short version: - Gameplay: 7/10 Good (*9/10 on the original 360 game*) - Content: = 7/10 Good (Despite the fact that we all played through the game before, there is so much content in the game! I can't give it a lower score than a 7. *10/10 on the original 360 game.* ) Price = 3/10 Bad (Bethesda is selling us the content we already own! Only with mods. *10/10 on the original 360 game*) - Graphics with mods (It depends on what mods you use, but the minimal score is a 7/10 and the maximum score is a 10/10! You can really turn this game into a visual masterpiece with specific mods!!!) - Graphics without mods = 6/10 Decent (There are upgrades, but nothing immediately noticeable. These graphics were impressive 5 years ago, but hold up. *9/10 on original 360 game*)

Titanfall 2 was one of my most anticipated games of 2016! While I liked the first one, praising it's slick multiplayer gameplay and the innovation of Respawn Entertainment, the team behind the development of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, I was severely disappointed, as were most, by the absence of a single player campaign, massive lack of content, and lack of diverse customization. While Titanfall 2 brings a single player campaign into the mix and a more diverse set of game modes and maps to play on, the game doesn't quite bring the level or depth of customization that there previous title Modern Warfare 2 had! The game takes a few steps forward in the right direction, but also stays in a lot of the same places it did with the original Titanfall game. The campaign is what I was most hyped for with this installment. I am a huge fan of the campaigns of the first two Modern Warfare games (I really hated the third games campaign), which is filled with awesome, memorable moments such as the Nuke, All Ghillied Up, Shepard's Betrayal and Death, Wolverines, and more! The campaigns had surprises and moments that truly caught the player off guard. They had emotional weight. Unfortunately, Respawn fails to bring that level of emotional depth into the first ever true Titanfall campaign! The story is very run-of-the-mill. You play as a pilot in training, Jack Cooper, who finds himself stuck behind enemy territory with his instructors titan, and must get back to the Militia Forces before it is too late. There are no surprising moments in this game, no moments that stuck out to me, the soundtrack isn't memorable at all. the characters are decent at best, and while the voice acting is good for the most part, I didn't feel attached to any of them! The villains are especially cliche and cartoonish! The first villain you meet, Kane, acts like his either drunk or insane before you get into a one-on-two boss battle with him. I really thought this would be the story that launched Titanfall towards greatness! It doesn't come close! I will say however, that the previous Titanfall's campaign (If you can even call it that) was much worse, and the gameplay is very slick! The graphics are really good, although I've noticed some textures were blurred, and the level design is alright. I personally think the previous Titanfall looked much better! I do like the diversity of guns this time around, but, as I've said already, there is a lack of customization options for all of them. You are limited to 1 or 2 sights a weapon, even in multiplayer, and that's unforunate. The campaign is a 5/10 Mediocre! I know Respawn can do much better because they have done much better with Modern Warfare. The multiplayer of Titanfall is slick, the gameplay is really good, the graphics look tight, and the game functions as well as I'd expect. There hasn't been a ton of lag spikes or latency issues as far as I have played, and that's great! Personally, I do not like the new weapon customization system: Instead of have "Extended Mags" or "Stocks" or "Grips," you get weapon perks such as "Fast Reload" or "Shoot while sprinting" and that is very disappointing. I loved Modern Warfare 2's customization system! You could pimp out your rifle with all sorts of sights and attachments, but in this game they abandoned that system! They have added new weapons from each category, and new abilities that work really well with the game, but despite all the included features, I found that I liked the original Titanfall's multiplayer a lot more! Perhaps it's because Multiplayer was the ONLY focus of that title so more resources were put into it. Not to say that this Titanfall's multiplayer isn't smooth! It is smooth like butter in fact! I just feel like Titanfall 1 did the multiplayer bet, for the most part. That said, Titanfall 2's multiplayer isn't bad! You have a more diverse set of titan's this time around. They can run a lot faster, and are a lot more fun to use than the slow as hell titan's from the first game! I like that there aren't any microtransactions! I had predicted EA to implement micro DLCs into this game, but they didn't, which is commendable. That said, I was disappointed with the multiplayer! I found myself going back to the first Titanfall and playing that multiplayer instead, which is saying a lot! I do enjoy the new Titanfall's multiplayer for the most part, but it feels like a step forward and two and a half steps back from the first game. They changed things that didn't need to be changed, we wanted more and they gave us more, but customization is still lacking! 6/10! This isn't the Titanfall I was hoping would launch the franchise to new heights. Hopefully the third installment can do that. Respawn needs to make a groundbreaking campaign for the next Titanfall, filled with awesome moments and surprises. We need more customization in multiplayer! Please do this Respawn and you'll have yourselves a damn good game!

Battlefield 1 is one of the most anticipated games of the year and it did not disappoint! I haven't had this much fun with a battlefield game since Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and everyone is saying this! EA and Dice could not have picked a more perfect time to release this epic World War 1 shooter! This has been a generation of future first-person shooter games with thruster packs and laser weapons, and we have said again and again that we are sick of it! I never, in a million years, expected EA to answer the cries of the gaming community, but they did! First, I'd like to talk about the campaign. It is a breath of fresh air for the Battlefield franchise. The past 3 battlefield games have all had terrible campaigns, so much so that they made Call of Duty's futuristic campaigns look good! This is the first campaign I've actually liked since Bad Company 2. What is unique about this campaign, however, is rather than having a string of missions for the player, it has multiple strings of missions called War Stories. In each war story, the player takes on the role of a diverse set of soldiers from different walks of life, serving different countries, all with different personalities, and different goals. It almost feels episodic playing through each story, which makes it more immersive for the player. The graphics look almost real, and the sets and props only help make the game more immersive. I loved the variety of each mission: you play as a tank unit, a pilot, an infantry man, juggernaut, and the levels can range from rush and assault to stealth. The biggest problem with the campaign however is the fact that the war stories are way too short to leave a lasting emotional impression on the player! The average number of missions per story is 3 or 4! It gives you a great story than rips it away from you as soon as you really start getting into it, similar to how Halo 3: ODST's campaign felt! The upside however, unlike Halo 3: ODST, is that there is enough multiplayer content to keep you invested in the game while justifying the $60 you spent on the game. I'd give the campaign a solid 7/10. It's good! Although it could have been a Masterpiece if they had included more into each war story, and even include another war story or two. The multiplayer, as expected, is exceptional! Although much of the content seems to be absent at launch, the modes they included are enough to keep players invested till the release of future modes, like Hardcore (which is "coming soon") The weapons are mostly good, but there is a vast lack of variety in the weapons you get! For each class, you pretty much get like 4 or 5 guns with different iterations of them, which fools you into thinking there's at least 12 or 13. The customization is definitely lacking! If you googled a list of weapons used during World War 1, there is a staggering number of weapons that Dice decided not to include into the game, which is b******t in my opinion! The game modes are all very fun! Conquest is back and better than ever! Team Deathmatch and Rush are there for players who want a more chaotic experience! I've enjoyed my play time in Domination, especially. And while I enjoy War Pigeons a lot, it feels more like a camping simulator than anything else. My team took a pigeon one time, set a ton of charges all around a building and just waited inside until we were ready to release our pigeon. We won in nearly 4 minutes. Regardless the multiplayer modes are all a blast to play. The best new feature of the multiplayer is a new mode called Operations! Where you literally take part in key battles, where you play as a member of an army trying to push the enemy lines back or defend them from falling into enemy hands. Once captured, another huge area of the map opens up, and you have to defend/capture that area next, and then again, and then again! These matches can last 2 hours long, maybe more! This is an incredible addition, and one I hope is included in future Battlefield games. I do wish, however, that more operations were included at launch. We only got 4 at launch. That said, there ares something technical issues with the game that have affected every single mode in Battlefield, especially my multiplayer experience. When going to the menu, you often freeze up and get killed before you can close it. It's especially frustrating when my game crashes and I have to restart the game all over again. Loading a game can take up to three minutes for me, although my friends haven't experienced this issue as much as I have. Hopefully, we get a patch soon that fixes these issues. Multiplayer is a 9/10! It's Great While Battlefield has its issues, it is a great game; arguably one of the best of 2016! It's a huge step up from Battlefield Hardline. However, it could have been a masterpiece. There is a lot holding it back from getting a 10/10, and it's painful to know that just a little more effort from DICE would have made this game that much more polished!

I know I'm a bit late to review this game, but as I've learned from Advanced Warfare, even if I like the game at launch,the game will most likely get worse as more and more updates are made to the game, and Black Ops 3 is no exception. At launch, I enjoyed the game's Campaign (I am one of the very few, so don't expect to play the game and like it as I have), multiplayer, and zombies! It was the first Call of Duty game since Modern Warfare 2 where I universally liked every mode I was give, but as time will tell, the game got progressively worse! My initial score at launch would have been a solid 7/10, which, on my scale, means it's a good game. As of now... well, let's review the game first. The campaign is one of the most hated campaigns in Call of Duty history, and as I said, I'm one of the few who actually liked it. I completely understand why people don't like the campaign though, the voice acting is cheesy as hell, the level design is very linear, the story is cliche, the AI is dumb, you name it. However, I felt the campaign did something the past call of duty games (after Modern Warfare 2) weren't doing. It innovated! We got new enemy types (which were challenging): drones, walkers, etc. We got to customize our loadouts which we took into our missions, the collectibles were fun to collect, and the story actually messed with my mind quite a bit. As unrealistic as the game is, and as disrespectful it may be to the Call of Duty Military Shooter of old, I couldn't hate the campaign. Perhaps this was because I had such low expectations after Advanced Warfare. I wish the game had continued the story of the Mason Family's story, I wish the voice acting was better, and I wish the game wasn't set so far in the future, but for what we got, I actually enjoyed the game's campaign. 7/10! It's good. At launch, I enjoyed the multiplayer greatly! I, for one, enjoyed Advanced Warfare's multiplayer, but after a while it got extremely bland and annoying. The exo suits turned call of duty into a bunny-hopping simulator, which ruined the game for most. The new movement system is more balanced, but does little to improve or innovate on the current call of duty formula. The maps we got at launch are pretty descent, for the most part, but the DLC maps left a lot to be desired. The graphics didn't help either. The game includes glossy textures, which make guns look plastic and less realistic and gritty as the Call of Duty franchise had once been. The sound effects are pretty good, even though the weapons are very unbalanced. As the game got older, the servers got so much worse, and eventually became unplayable. The lag, as of now, is completely game breaking! It is the worst lag I've seen since Battlefield 4 at launch, and I'm not exaggerating! The hit marker detection is awful, and has been awful even at launch, the lag got worse and worse, the skill-gap compression is a huge issue, input/output delays happen constantly, and what's worse is that the Black Market Supply Drops have made the game a Pay-to-Win system. At launch, the Black Market didn't require money and was a method to get cosmetic items, which I actually liked! It's not as bad as the Advanced Warfare Supply Drop system, but it's pretty bad! This multiplayer has been completely ruined by these upadtes. At launch, I would have given the multiplayer an 8/10, which is really good, but now it's a 3/10! It's bad! At launch, Zombies was actually my least favorite part of the game. I purchased the Hardened Edition, which gave me the Der Riese remake called the Giant, which was a pretty good map, but Shadows of Evil was a Mob of the Dead rehash, which isn't a bad thing, but didn't quite work for the map itself which is set in the 1950s. The map has been improved with updates to the game however, and has since then, become a somewhat descent map. One improvement was having two Margwa heads open at once. While I loved the third map, Der Eisendrache, I really didn't like the fourth map Zetsobou No Shima, which was glitchier and buggier than any Zombies map I'd ever played. I didn't expect the next two maps, Gorod Krovi and Revelations to be as good as they were, but Treyarch managed to release some of the best maps in Zombies history. Now, Black Ops 3 zombies, while a huge improvement over Black Ops 2's mediocre Zombies and Advanced Warfare's Exo Zombies, doesn't quite live up to the reputation of it's predecessors in Black Ops 1 and World at War, but overall, it's pretty good. It also helps that they added a customization feature to allow players to customize their weapons with the sights and attachments they want to use! This is a great addition to the game mode, and the best innovation since the Pack-A-Punch Machine in World at War. My biggest issue with the Zombies mode is the servers ****! I played a solo game and I got the "Connection Interrupted" message and had to restart! WTF! This mode ended up being a 7/10! It's good, but the lag keeps it from getting an 8!

When Microsoft announced that they were releasing a Gears of War 4 game, I was both really excited and really nervous to play the game. Microsoft hasn't been on the best of our mines. They've rebooted two key Xbox franchises: Tomb Raider and Halo. Tomb Raider was very successful, but Halo has definitely not been successful. I didn't want Gears of War to fall into the same category as Halo did. I'm very happy to say that not only does The Coalition (the company responsible for developing next-gen gears of war titles) revitalize the franchise with this reboot, it keeps the "Gears formula" as it was in the first three games! 343 Industries needs to take some serious notes on this game, so they make sure they know changing a formula isn't going to necessarily make a game better. The games campaign is really good! Like Uncharted 4 or even the recent Star Wars VII movie, the story isn't anything special, but the gameplay is great enough to keep players invested in the game. It also adds new environmental hazards that occur at certain moments in the game, which forces players to change their play style, duck behind certain cover points while staying away from others, certain weapons need to be shoot from a certain angle because the wind will blow the bullets away from the target, and little things like this that makes the game exciting while also adding new layers to the Gears of War formula. The graphics are great, the gameplay is great, the voice acting is really good, and I found it more surprising that I actually liked the new characters; JD, Kait, and Del. These characters aren't there to replace the old because we know that nobody can replace Cole Baird, Marcus, or Dom (Rest in Piece!!!). A big chunk of the game actually involves Marcus Fenix quite a bit. Some of the bits are actually quite humorous (like when the COG sends DB Bots to capture Marcus' son, and they destroy his tomato garden. Marcus gets pissed about it. It made me chuckle quite a bit) The enemy AI is arguably the best in the series. Enemies use cover more strategically then in previous gears games. It also offers new enemy types, including Juvies, Scions, and Pouncers. One of the issues I had with the campaign was, while a lot of the art design respects the original (unlike Halo 4 and Halo 5), the DB bots, which are the enemies of the first and second act look very colorful. This takes away from the grittiness of the game, and looks almost a bit cartoonish. It's just not as satisfying chainsawing through a machine than flesh and bone. I love that they kept the gore in the game and the same assets and designs. The snatcher, a mini-boss, is also very annoying. He kills you in one shot, snatches you up, and takes you away, which forces you to restart to the last checkpoint. This was the only major glaring issue with the campaign that I've had so far. There haven't been any continuity errors as far as I have seen, and overall, the campaign is a welcome arch to the new generation of Gears fans. 8/10! It's really good! To be honest, when I played the Gears 4 multiplayer beta, I wasn't impressed at all. In fact, I disliked it very much. The weapon balance was off, it was too easy to run and gun enemy players behind cover, and the strategy, which made the Gears multiplayer so engaging was lost. The Coalition has thankfully listened to the community. The game functions a lot like it did with past gears titles. The maps are decent, but I found the gamemodes to be unbalanced. For example: I played Guardian, where your team has to defend a player marked as "The Leader" and if the leader dies, the enemy team can begin killing off your allies. Our leader constantly ran out and got himself killed while the enemy leader stayed in the back corner defend by his team. It became a camping game rather than a third-person strategic cover shooter. I often find myself playing against experience players while my team consists of new players who attempt to run out and eliminate the enemy team as quickly as possible. They often get themselves killed, and I end up being the last player surrounded by a full 5 player enemy team. I want the Coalition to update the game's matchmaking so that it's easier to get match with players of equal skill. Overall, I really enjoyed the multiplayer. It's not perfect, but it is much better than I had expected it to be. 7/10! It's good! The Horde mode is back, and it's better than ever! I love playing this made with my friends in Gears 3, and Gears 4 definitely improves upon it! In between waves, you set up your defenses. Certain spots on the maps were set up to allow players to set up say, one turret in the back, barriers at the front, two decoys in the windows, etc. I'm hooked on this mode! I highly recommend it to any gears fan who wants a more cooperative experience. 8/10! It's really good! I'm surprised few mentioned the microtransactions! They aren't as invasive as most, but please take them out of the game Microsoft! Please!!!

It amazes me that Advanced Warfare was able to a more diverse set of multiplayer maps than Black Ops 3 day one! First off, I have to say I didn't expect the new zombie map Der Eisendrache to be all that good. Shadows of Evil was mediocre at best, and while the Giant is really good, we've played it already in WaW and BO1. I'm personally not a fan of Mob of the Dead. I don't like it because it was too easy with the Zombie Shield, BlunderGat and Electric Cherry Perk. The Boss was annoying, and setting up the map was a grind, but this map seemed to have made the MotD formula work! It can get a little grindy, but it's easy to set up by round 8, 9, or 10. This map has numerous camping spots that rival even the Catwalk of Der Riese (The Giant), as well as a few really good Training Spots. There aren't any new regular weapons sadly, but there are new elemental bows, which are great (Overpowered actually. The map becomes too easy when using the Lightning Bow!). It's fun, public lobby friendly, I just wish players didn't have to continuously recreate the bows every damn time they play! The biggest issue I have with the map is the color palette! There is f***ing NEON BLUE LEVITATION GAS!!!! WHAT!!! This is **** Zombies for god's sake! This is suppost to be scary! I miss the fear factor and challenge factors of the old zombies maps, especially WaW and BO1. Overall, however, Der Eisendrache is one of the best zombies maps to date. It gets a 9/10, but that isn't enough to balance the crappy new multiplayer maps. The map I like the most is called Rise. It's design is similar to Array from Black Ops 1, which is confusing because Array isn't all that great. This map is surprising because I didn't expect it to be good. I thought it'd be the bad map of the group. It has circular lanes that connect to both spawn sides and a neat center lane with opposite windows for sniper support. I like the map because the flow is present, it's easy to maneuver, and has some good choke points. Visually, the map isn't all that special. It has a number of different paths to take, making every lane useable to the player. It actually feels balanced, which is something the other maps sorely lack. It's not too big, not too small. Overall, it's an enjoyable map. But as I said, nothing special. 7/10 (Good) The second best map is Gauntlet. A lot of people seem to like it. However, I was disappointed with it. I thought it would be a field changing map like those in AW, changing from Snow to City to Jungle environments, but sadly it's merely a map that has a Jungle Lane, City Lane, and in the middle, a snow lane. The map has some decent close quarters encounters, but it feels very small, and yet open. I don't know what it is. It's definitely not a bad map, but I feel that there could have been a much better one. 6/10 (Decent) The next map, Skyjacked, is a remake of Hijacked from BO2, a fan-favorite. I feel a lot of people are going to like this map just because it's a remake of Hijacked, but the feel of Skyjacked, combined with the Double jump ability is very different, and that isn't a good thing. It feels a lot duller, for one. I liked the wall running path they replaced with the Catwalk from Hijacked, but everything is basically the same otherwise. But because this map is a copy-paste of Hijacked (Activision puts no effort into creating maps! They are pretty much all copy-paste at this point in one way or another). That said, because movement is faster with double jump, boosting, sliding, etc. It destroys the flow of the map, which was built for standard old-school CoD movement. It's sad because I really loved Hijacked. This map is very disappointing. Not bad, but compared to Hijacked, it's mediocre. 6/10 at best (Decent) The last map is Splash. Oh... my... god... This map is living proof that Activision markets to little kids more than teens or adults because the colors in this map are absolutely ridiculous! I'm talking about neon blue, green, bright yellow, even PINK! What! The map plays well enough, but there are so few choke points! The map has a few camping spots that are really annoying. The water paths are nice for flanking, but hard to use due to the sniping spots from both sides (Which are open waterslide tubes) What has call of duty become!? This map plays really well actually, but the colors, the camping spots, the sniping, just makes it unbalanced and kid-friendly. I've enjoyed this map, don't get me wrong, but it has some serious problems 5/10 (Mediocre) What's funny about this map pack is what I expect to be good wasn't that good, and what I expected to be not-that-good, was actually pretty good. There are two maps worth getting here: Rise and Der Eisendrache. And there are three that aren't: Skyjacked, Gauntlet and Splash. I would say that it's worth buying when the price goes down, especially for Zombies Players, like myself, because I haven't seen a really good zombie map since Call of the Dead in Black Ops! 5/10

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

* I wrote this review a while back, so I apologize if it seems outdated vs. the time it was release. I made some additions, but most of it was done a year or so ago. * This game is a prime example of why this is the Golden Age of Fighting Games! First off, the gameplay is excellent, by far the best part of the game. The game features some of the goriest fatalities in Mortal Kombat history! This is not at all a game for the faint hearted. If you have issues with blood, or the sound of bones breaking, this is probably not a game you should try. Now, the story here may not be as good or as long as the story in Mortal Kombat IX, but it is still fun to play. My biggest concern with this game was the introduction of new characters. I was worried that they would replace the old ones and not be able to live up to the greats, such as Subzero, Scorpion, Johnny Cage, etc. Fortunately, the old characters are still here and will probably be with us for a long time. Some have aged, yes, but still here. The new characters are wonderful editions! Erron Black is probably my favorite of all the new ones, and the most fun to play as. Sadly, the game does not feature any maps with staged fatalities, babalities, friendships, etc. but it does add new finishing moves, probably the best one since the game was first created, called Quitalities, which occurs when a player quits in the middle of the game due to rage or whatever, the game officially ends, and as the victor, you are rewarded with a Quitality. Hilarious! There are some great new gamemodes, such as King of the Hill, that change to the entire gameplay experience. Krypt mode is as awesome addition, where you can spend in-game currency to unlock new fatalities, brutalities, costumes, etc. Unfortunately, some of the best new characters, such as D'vorah and Ferra/Torr, are really hard to play as and win. Scorpion is an overpowered character, as is Erron Black, and it's frustrating to try and play against them with any other character. Also, while I like the idea of the new character variation system, which adds a variety of different gameplay methods with the same characters, it seems very unbalanced. Some of the characters, such as Cassie Cage and Jacqui Briggs only have one good variation to choose and fight as. This is disappointing, considering I was really hyped for this addition to the game. Also, I was disappointed by the serious lack a diverse set of maps. I suppose the Fighter genre has never had too many, but I wanted more considering this is the next generation. The maps only difference in terms of gameplay variety is the setting and the interactions, and some maps crossover the same interactions, like throwing a fire pyre from a brazier. There is little difference to mention, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's similar to the movement system in Black Ops 3 (Black Ops 2, but you can walk on walls!! Who cares!?) Regardless, it's a minor complaint that I hope Netherrealms and Warner Bros. will address in future titles. Few things I would like for Netherrealms to add in the future, perhaps in upcoming DLCs, would be stage fatalities and more maps! Stage fatalities were a big part of MK9 that made the maps feel more diverse and unique. The interactions are a nice touch, but hardly worth mentioning, in my opinion. The game still suffers from matchmaking connection issues that plagued MK9. I prefer playing splitscreen over online in any Mortal Kombat game, but I know people who love online matchmaking will be pissed off by the connection issues. Hopefully, this gets better in the future. Lastly, I felt the faction system was very underdeveloped. You can choose between five factions, which have there own unique finishing moves, called Faction Kills, which you can unlock by winning battles against other players. Aside from this, that's about it. You may enter in Faction Wars, events that happen every so often, but winning battles for your faction doesn't reward you in any way. Overall, Mortal Kombat is a very good game. One of the best this year, but that's not saying much. The past few years have been plagued with many disappointing titles. This one just manages to not do that. Gameplay = 9/10 Story = 7/10 Multiplayer = 7/10 Other (Graphics, Extras, Soundtrack, Voice Acting, etc.) = 8/10 Overall = 8/10

Basically, this game does almost nothing Halo 4 did completely wrong, but does a whole lot of new things to mess up! - 1 for having no splitscreen and having only 3 blue team missions! This is ridiculous and -1 for incorporating microtransactions and the Halo 2 ending redux!!!!!!

This DLC finally gives Destiny a story! Was it that hard to let Bungie add a story Activision! And it's a good story. The new missions give Destiny a new meaning that breathes some fresh air into the game! This is so much better than the Dark Below and I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed this new DLC. However, if you haven't notice regardless of everything House of Wolves does right, I still give it a 5/10. Can you guess why? That's because it takes at least 2 hours to beat! For a story, it's great, but doesn't come close to matching the failure of a story that Destiny was! Yes, it's a great DLC, and if it gave us at least 8 hours of gameplay, it might have been an 8 or even a 9! The price is not worth the lack of content this gives you! Wait until it goes down or don't get it at all. It's good, but too short to be worth your hard-earned money!

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]